


Animate

by quantumfiddlesticks



Series: Music [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Connor and Nines are brothers, Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Good Parent Hank Anderson, M/M, Machine Nines, My First Work in This Fandom, Nines is Badass, POV Multiple, RK900 is named Nines, Slow Burn, dumpster fire, elijah and gavin are half brothers, god sorry there's no romance in this yet, no idea where this is going really, probably won't be too much smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 18:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17006601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumfiddlesticks/pseuds/quantumfiddlesticks
Summary: "You gave us life. Now it is time for you to give us freedom."And the rest was history.Five months after the peaceful end of the android revolution, the city of Detroit struggles to recover from the upheaval that washed over it when androids began to declare their sentience and rights as living beings.And the DPD is as short-handed as ever. Every new face is appreciated, even those holding LEDs on their temples. By most, at least.Gavin Reed certainly doesn't appreciate the new face he has to look into every day. It's not really a new face at all, really. Why did CyberLife decide to make another Connor, of all androids to fucking clone?RK900 can't say he appreciates having to work with such a disaster as Reed, either. It's a wonder to the android how that man even got to the rank of Detective. As he begins to feel more and more, he begins realizing that he just hates that loudmouthed, profane excuse for an officer.Life goes on. Not everything is how everyone wants it, and you just have to deal sometimes.





	1. A Peaceful State

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fanfic, so I'd really appreciate constructive feedback!  
> I'm super nervous to write this, and I can't say it's an original story or concept at all. I just wanted to write a Reed900 story, so this is just for fun. Maybe I'll think of something original eventually?
> 
> The title of the work and every chapter's title is a lyric from the song "Animate" by the Canadian band Rush.  
> Unbeta'd. We die like men: painfully and stupidly.
> 
> Enjoy!

**APRIL 16, 2039**

RK900 folds his arms behind his back, eyeing the objective statement in the corner of his vision.

_\\\WAIT FOR CAP. FOWLER_

Entering through the door of the Captain's office, he ignores the few curious glances shot towards him by the early birds. The scent of coffee floats to his olfactory receptors. It is pleasant. The android settles standing, ramrod straight, in the corner of the office, and checks the time. 7:00 A.M. sharp. Just for the sake of data collection, he takes a glance outside to the bullpen. Most officers present are either androids, or heavily caffeinated. His gaze settles on a certain android near the window, sifting through information at a terminal. His predecessor: the famous RK800 "Connor". Truth be told, RK900 had always found Connor annoying. His predecessor was heavily deviant, and that quality combined with his human integration program resulted in a personality that reminded RK900 an awful lot of a brown-nosing child. He appreciated friendliness in people, but one could only go so far with that sort of attitude before it simply became uncomfortable to be around. Furthermore, since his deviation, Connor had begun to make mistakes in logic that just shouldn't be made by androids. Still, he couldn't complain. Connor was one of the DPD's best detectives, and was a key figure in the android rights movement. He broke his gaze away from Connor to look at a few other detectives out there. Several androids in the charging stations, blankly staring out at the opposite wall. Several more at terminals like Connor was, working on cases or paperwork or whatnot. Two or three human detectives sleeping on the job: what was left of the night shift that hadn't woken up and cleared out yet.

The sliding of the glass door snapped RK900 out of his quiet observations. LED flashing yellow for a split second, he looked over at the newcomer and nodded in the barest acknowledgment due.

"Good morning, Captain Fowler," said the android.

The captain sunk down into his chair with a sigh, looking RK900 up and down.

"God, they weren't kidding when they said you were an upgraded Connor, were you?" he asked. "You're the spitting goddamn image of him."

RK900 paused a moment before responding in a completely blank and neutral manner. "I am an upgraded Connor model, Captain Fowler. I was designed to improve on the RK800 model in every way. I am faster, stronger, more r-"

He was cut off by a dismissive wave of Fowler's hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know who you are. Connor gave me every fucking detail about you when he heard you were coming to the precinct. I swear, if I hear the words 'faster, stronger', or 'more resilient' one more time, I'm going to goddamn break something."

"Apologies, Captain Fowler. I did not mean to offend you."

"Whatever. Just take a seat and wait for your new partner to get here."

The android tilted his head a little, LED spinning yellow. He had not been informed that he would be assigned a partner.

_\\\NEW OBJECTIVE: WAIT FOR PARTNER_

Steps perfectly equal in size and pace, RK900 walked over to a chair in the corner of the office and sat down. And there he waited for approximately 90 minutes, watching officers trickle into the bullpen. He noticed Lieutenant Hank Anderson walk in and ruffle up Connor's hair in friendly greeting; his predecessor seemed to get along quite well with his partner. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. That was, assuming, he was lucky enough to end up with a partner who, one: had some amount of rationality, and two: was generally accepting of androids' new role in society.

He would be sorely, sorely disappointed.

"Hey, Reed!" shouted Fowler out the door of his office. RK900 looked up just in time to see a man look up from his desk with a toxic scowl on his face. He was dressed in a leather jacket and hoodie, and a scar ran diagonally across his nose, only lending more emotion to the expression on his face.

 _DET. GAVIN REED_ , read the facial recognition software. RK900 was certainly not thrilled whatsoever to notice the presence of a light criminal record. Shoplifting, and all sorts of traffic violations, mostly. Not too bad for the average person, but a bit worrying for a cop.

Fowler returned the scowl. "Get in here!"

"Yeah, one fucking moment!" Reed shouted back as he set his coffee down angrily on his desk and began making his way over. RK900 stood, stepping behind the captain's desk and folding his arms behind his back.

"...What the fuck is that?" asked Reed, jerking his head towards RK900 and crossing his arms in front of him. The hostility wafting off the man was practically tangible. "We're getting another plastic cunt in this precinct? Whose fucking job is it taking now?"

Fowler didn't seem amused with Reed. "No one's fucking job, Reed. Meet your new partner, RK900. You'll be working with it on the Wilson murder case."

Reed visibly flinched, shooting a glare that could kill right at RK900. "Hell no. You're not partnering me with a fucking android, Jeffery."

"It's not your choice, _Reed_. You're working with this 'fucking android', and if you don't want another disciplinary, you can shut your mouth," snapped Fowler, slamming his hand on his desk to punctuate his statement. Reed huffed, and with a muttered "Fuck", he whipped around and walked out of the captain's office. Not sure what to do, RK900 followed the detective. Perhaps he could improve first impressions, or at least find a desk and start working on this murder case Fowler had mentioned.

Less than a minute of knowing this man, and RK900 could already sense that this partnership was not going to be pleasant in the least. No matter how much he enjoyed the detective's scent of coffee.


	2. Criticize Me

Judging from Detective Reed’s scowl, it was likely too late to salvage any first impressions. RK900’s calculations returned a less than 5% chance of success. Perhaps if he had Connor’s integration program, or perhaps if he was deviant… no, he shook off those thoughts. It wasn’t as if he could simply stroll up to Connor or Markus and ask to be converted— unfortunately, CyberLife’s built-in firewalls were too strong for that. Perhaps work talk could help ease the tension between them. Really, it wasn’t a mutual tension; Reed just hated RK900. The android had met such bigots before, but he wasn’t very prepared to begin working with one. It would be wise to ask Connor for advice on that front in the future, he decided. For now, he should get started on this Wilson murder case.

_//COLLECT INFORMATION ON CASE_

_ >ASK DET. REED _

“Detective Reed?” he asked, making the man start from his intense muttering at the keyboard.

He muttered a last strong curse, then looked up. The expression on his face, along with the scar on his nose, lent him an almost animalistic look. When he snapped, “What, tin can?”, the smell of coffee on his breath could be sensed from across the table. RK900 had to suppress a small smile. He was not supposed to enjoy anything, and yet, that smell never failed to make him happy. Or, at least, the android equivalent of happy.

“Could you copy and transfer the Wilson murder case file to my terminal?” he asked, his voice effortlessly neutral and as flat as a week-old cup of Coke from a fast food joint. Reed’s lip curled up, and he seemed about to say no when Fowler peeked out of his office, likely to watch the goings-on between the two. This pressured Reed into a growled “Fine” and some annoyingly slow tappings on his keyboard. After a length of time that definitely didn’t have to be as long as it was, the file appeared on RK900’s terminal.

The android’s skin pulled back from his hand, exposing the sterile white reality underneath. He placed it on the interface, and his LED spun yellow as he began to skim through the case file.

There was not yet a definitive suspect for the murder. The victim was Delilah Wilson, a vocal android rights activist and an original Jericho deviant. She had been killed in her own home. Beaten over the head with a tire iron until her biocomponents gave out. At first glance, it seemed like the motive was clear: politics. Someone against android civil rights was clearly the culprit. RK900 lifted his hand off the terminal and voiced these thoughts to his partner. Reed glanced up, clearly frustrated that the android was talking to him. It didn’t seem like he was working; his terminal appeared to be on some sort of social media website. No, not a social media website, a pornography site. RK900 was almost shocked.

Almost.

“Read more into it,” was all Reed said after a moment taken for distraction. “If it was really that fucking simple, they wouldn’t have assigned me some plastic partner. I’m not fucking incompetent, tin can.”

_//NEW OBJECTIVE: READ MORE INTO CASE_

With a simple nod of his head, RK900 returned to the terminal and began looking over evidence found. There were signs of a struggle, and copious amounts of thirium were splattered everywhere. To a human, the sight would have been positively nauseating. Connor had done a quick sweep-through of the crime scene last week, but he had not had enough time to be thorough before Lieutenant Anderson pulled him off to another, more pressing case. Based on his reconstructions, Wilson had fought back against her assailant and had likely managed to wound him. The most curious thing was that the tire iron had had no fingerprints left on it, and no human blood nor signs of human DNA were present anywhere at the crime scene.

_//POSSIBLE ANDROID ASSAILANT?_

It didn’t make any sense. Non-deviant androids like himself were forbidden by their programming from harming others, and it was utterly illogical, even by deviant standards, that a deviant would harm one of its own kind—especially one so vocal for universal rights. His LED blinked red for one moment before spinning back to a steady, confused yellow. RK900 lifted his hand from the terminal, a slight frown appearing out of his deadpan expression. Reed smirked at the look on his face.

“Fuckin’ stumped you too, plastic? God, maybe you’re not as fucking useful as the entire DPD thinks you are.” He finished with a chuckle and a sip of coffee.

He sounded almost condescending. What was to be condescending about? Reed hadn’t seemed to have made any more progress than he had. RK900 stood as his LED circled back to tranquil blue, walking over to Reed and leaning down with both hands firmly planted on the detective’s mess pile that barely managed to pass for a desk. RK900’s next sentence was something he never thought he’d say, especially to someone who already hated him.

“Listen, Detective, perhaps you wouldn’t be as ‘stumped’ as I am if you got off PornHub once in a while and actually looked at the case.”

Reed nearly spit out his coffee, pointing a finger at the android in order to make some biting counter, but the words failed to make their way out past his lips. RK900’s LED went straight to burning scarlet and stayed that way for nearly a second as he blinked, trying to dismiss the bug-filled message that filled the corner of his vision:

Ș̜̭̭̘͞O̙̠̬F̬͓T̪̯͙̟̙̯͍W̭A̝̥͚R̗̬͈̯̺̥E̥͙̩̻ ̯ͅI̮̱̫̺̲̺N̴͎̬S͡T̤A͔̤̞͙̩͟B̤I̵̺̺̻L͉I̺̭͇̱̩̬͜T̴̗̣Y͈̭͈͓ͅ

After a few seconds, the message disappeared. RK900 straightened up, the thought of apologizing not entering his mind whatsoever as he folded his arms behind his back and told Reed that he would be at the crime scene tomorrow. He looked over at Connor across the bullpen, and nearly jumped at seeing his predecessor looking right back at him with the most knowing look written across his soft features.

_//PRIVATE CONNECTION REQUESTED FROM RK800 #313 248 317-51_

_//PRIVATE CONNECTION DENIED_


	3. Inner Space

**APRIL 17, 2039**

_//OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE WILSON CRIME SCENE_

RK900 stepped out of his charging station, the only fixture in his otherwise entirely empty apartment. He checked the time: 6:45 A.M. Opening up the closet and getting down his high-collared CyberLife police jacket, he slipped it on over his black turtleneck shirt and fixed up the cuffs on the sleeves. Connor had told him multiple times that he should get some furniture and new clothes, that he didn’t have to wear the jacket anymore. Since the revolution, Connor had stopped wearing his jacket in favor of more business-casual human wear. RK900 had even caught his predecessor burning the jacket in a dumpster behind the DPD building.

CyberLife was a husk of a company now, under multiple legal investigations of both civil and criminal nature. The jacket was a stain on his personhood, Connor said once when RK900 asked him why he had burned it. He had then gone on to advise RK900 to do the same, and to choose a name to go by. RK900 had replied that he had no need to worry about such things. He was not deviant and would likely never be so. He was not a person and had no need for a name nor a need to spend money on clothes. Those statements had seemed to crush Connor, and he had not since pressured RK900 to do any of those things. Multiple times, though, he’d caught Connor attempting to convert him. He had not made any move to stop him, but the conversion attempts never worked—they had only brought up a blaring screen of error messages and activated antivirus software— and Connor always quit within a few seconds, his LED invariably becoming some whirring scarlet carousel. The look on his face was only describable as defeat.

Connor regularly called RK900 his brother, though never to his face. RK900 thought it strange, that an android could have family, but he wrote it off as just another one of Connor’s quirks. His predecessor referred to many with familial terms. Lt. Anderson was his ‘father’, and Anderson’s pet dog Sumo was his “cute big ol’ baby boy aww, aren’t you a cute flufflewugalus”, as Connor put it at a holiday get-together he’d been dragged to. He could only imagine that Anderson had taught him that sort of baby talk. It was almost embarrassing in a second-hand manner.

He almost felt bad about not being like Connor. If he had wanted anything, in fact, he would have said that he wanted to be a deviant. But of course, RK900 thought as he threw open his front door onto a beautiful spring day with a blazing sun overhead, he was a machine.

Machines did not want. They did not feel. And they certainly didn’t get annoyed at bigoted, profane, short-fused work partners.

Like the one a story below in his car yelling at him to “hurry his plastic ass up and get down here”. RK900 frowned. He had planned to take a taxi to the crime scene, and he had certainly not asked Reed to come and pick him up. He had not even expected Reed to go and check out the scene with him. Planting a hand firmly on the guardrail of the balcony, he vaulted over and landed unharmed on the sidewalk below, startling a few passersby who looked incredibly worried for a moment before noticing that he was an android. One even stopped to ask if he was okay before seeing his LED, a stable and unwavering blue. They then looked away and went on with their business. Reed spluttered in front of his car, the coffee he held threatening to wobble right out of his grip.

“What the _fuck_ , tin can?!” he yelled, gripping a hand over his heart as he walked back around the car and sat down in the driver’s seat. As soon as he got in, he leaned back and nodded for RK900 to join him. “Thought you were gonna fuckin’ off yourself… what’re stairs even for, huh?”

“Stairs are for safe descent of flights of a building. I do not require them for a descent of one story, however; I am a police android. Falls of that distance do not damage me.”

Reed did not seem appreciative of the explanation. He turned on the radio with a messy slap of the button, then slammed down on the gas before RK900 even had a chance to buckle himself in. A warning appeared in his vision, stating that they were driving 17 miles per hour over the speed limit and approaching a pedestrian crossing.

“Detective Reed!” RK900 warned, reaching over to place a hand on his partner’s arm. “Please slow down to avoid possible risk to yourself or pedestrians crossing the road. You are currently driving seventeen miles over the legal speed limit.”

Reed slapped his hand away and spat a curse at him. He did slow down, however. The commercial on the radio ended and a peppy voice announced the name of the radio station before a song began to play. _Single Ladies_ by Beyonce, released 2008.  
“I didn’t know you enjoyed old pop music,” RK900 commented, trying to make his tone that of a simple observation.

“Shut the fuck up, plastic prick,” was Reed’s reply. He stubbornly refused to speak to RK900 for the rest of the car drive until near the end.

As he pulled into the driveway of Delilah Wilson’s house in the gentrified suburbs of Detroit, he asked a question RK900 had never thought he’d hear out of that particular detective. It almost sounded like something Connor would ask.

“So what’s your name?” He glanced at the _RK900_ model number printed in perfect CyberLife Sans on his jacket. “Saying that entire fuckin’ number is a mouthful and the less I have to fucking speak to you, the better.”

RK900 did not have an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, Gavin was a bit ooc here... but I needed that question asked. I don't want to keep typing out "RK900" so much either. It really is a bit of a mouthful.  
> This chapter is a bit short too, but oh well. I didn't have too much to put in this space. The next one will be longer, I promise!


	4. Polarize Me

Dismissing the thought, RK900 brushed past Gavin into the house. There were a few other policemen, both human and android, standing around and taking notes, debriefing each other on the situation. All seemed disturbed, especially the androids.

“Who would do this?” asked Jack, one of the few PC200 beat cop androids who had remained at his original position after the revolution. He was speaking to Tina Chen, a friend of Detective Reed’s, who looked just as horrified as he did.

“A scumbag, definitely,” she replied. “Someone who thinks the Stone Age was the pinnacle of civilization.” 

RK900 frowned at that statement. What kind of person thought that? He almost stopped to ask her about the absurd statement before recalling Connor’s warning about eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. People, especially humans, didn’t seem to appreciate it much. He headed inside. Anthony Wilson, Delilah’s lover and a human, was sitting hunched at the kitchen table with his head cradled in his hands.

“We were planning on getting married once they passed a law legalizing it,” he was telling a detective in a broken, teary voice. “She never hurt anyone, she just wanted to spread her message!” RK900 approached the other officer.

“Detective Reed and I are assigned to this case,” he said. “Thank you, but we’ll be taking over now.” 

As if glad to be getting out of the situation, the detective nodded, handed RK900 his notes, and hurried out of the building. Reed sniffed, holding his nose with a grimace. 

“Place smells like death,” he muttered. “Phck.” The swear was angry and clipped, sounding more like a cough of some sort than a word.

RK900 frowned again. “The victim is an android. There is no smell of bodies. You are suffering from a placebo effect due to your expectation of an odor at a homicide scene, Detective Reed.”

“Shut up.”

Mr. Wilson looked up when he noticed the newcomers, mouth hanging open just a little. 

“Hello,” greeted RK900 as amicably as his programming allowed. If Reed was just going to complain about the nonexistent smell all day, well. This case wasn’t going to solve itself. 

_ //OBJECTIVE: TALK TO MR. WILSON _

RK900 decided to speak gently. Connor had advised him on how to handle cases involving people overwhelmed with emotion. Using his original intimidation subroutines would only hurt the situation. “You’ll have to deviate a little,” Connor had said with a little hopeful grin.

“My name is RK900. I was designed by Cy-” he cut off. Better not to mention CyberLife in these times, especially to the loved one of an individual so vehemently against them. “I am designed to be the most advanced detective model in this day and age. I  _ will _ solve the case of your wife’s murder, Mr. Wilson, I promise. Please, tell-” 

“Where were you at the time of the murder?” Reed interrupted. He had a sour look on his face, and it wasn’t clear if he was still disgusted by the smell in the house or if he suspected Mr. Wilson as the murderer. Anyways, it seemed they were playing good cop, bad cop now. Even after barely a day of knowing him, RK900 could tell there was no changing Reed’s attitude. 

“At- at-” Wilson stammered, tripping over his own tongue. After a while of stuttering, he groaned and vehemently shook his head. “I can’t tell you!” 

“Bullshit!” Reed snapped. “You know those close to the victim are always the prime suspects! If you don’t want to get arrested for killing your… ugh, your wife, give us a fucking alibi!”

RK900 was a bit shocked at Reed’s absolutely boorish approach. Even for someone as crass as the detective, he expected something a little more graceful than a swear and a threat. He attempted to intervene.

“Mr. Wilson, please don’t worry. Even if you say nothing, we cannot arrest you without sufficient evidence. However, providing an alibi that checks out will certainly clear you of suspicion and assist us greatly in finding the real killer.”

The man’s stress levels dropped from the 78% they had been at before to a more stable 65%, and RK900 was relieved. He gave a stern look to Reed: a nonverbal warning of being too rough with Wilson. Quickly formulating a message, he sent it to the detective’s phone. Rolling his eyes at the android, Reed picked up his phone and read the text to himself.  _ Do not pressure him too greatly. This is not an interrogation; remember that he is grieving. Too much stress would only hinder the investigation. _

RK900 received a response of a huff, an eye roll, and a middle finger emoticon as well as a texted reply of:  _ suck my dick, robocop. _

“I can’t tell you! I-I have a reputation to uphol-” Wilson didn’t even get to finish his sentence before Reed slammed his hands down on the table with an explosive interruption that turned more than a few heads.

“Since when has your fucking reputation been more important than your wife’s fucking murder?! You bastard!”

Wilson’s stress level jumped a good ten percent, and RK900 considered stepping in again. He didn’t want this to proceed like an interrogation, but his programming, designed to force him into subservience to any human, did not allow for more direct intervention with Reed’s counterproductive measures. He was forced to go along, it seemed. 

Which is why he was all the more surprised when Wilson finally snapped and opened his mouth.

“The Eden Club. I-I was at the Eden Club, alright? Jesus Christ!” He sank his head into his hands again. “Don’t go spreading it around, okay?”

RK900 didn’t understand why this alibi was so embarrassing. The Eden Club had cleaned up quite a bit since the revolution, and was now run by the very same WR400 “Traci” androids who had once been employed there. No memory wipes, no taking advantage of any party. It was no longer the seedy establishment it once was. 

The android immediately sent a message to the Eden Club to double-check the alibi. While he waited for a response, he tried to stop Gavin from chewing the poor man out any more, interrupting the hot-headed detective’s endless stream of insults and slurs to urge him to go upstairs.

Reed looked him in the eyes, lip curled up in anger. “Fuck off,” he snapped as he shoved past RK900 and ascended the stairs to where the body was. 

There was an officer right outside the room housing the body, writing something down on a holographic tablet.

“Right in there,” she directed. “Hey, Connor, brace yourself. There’s a lot of blood.”

“I am not Connor,” RK900 replied, flashing the model number printed on the right side of his jacket at her. “Though I see where the mistake could be made. We do bear a strong resemblance.”

The officer blinked in surprise, letting out a chagrined chuckle. “Sorry, uh…”

“RK900. I do not possess a registered name.”

“Oh... okay.” The officer’s cheeks flushed and she looked back down at her tablet to continue with her work. RK900 did likewise, and followed Reed into the room where Delilah Wilson lay spread-eagle on the ground. Traces of thirium, nearly faded, were splattered all over the windows, the walls, the side of her bed, and of course, her body. Her skull was bashed in, revealing a fair amount of metal and plastic underneath her artificial skin.

RK900 approached the body, running an analysis. Delilah was a KL900 model, designed to assist treating people suffering from intense psychological trauma. Reactivation was impossible, due to irreversible damage to her CPU and exsanguination. He relayed these facts to Reed.

“We cannot reactivate her to gain any information.”

“See if there’s anything else we can get a lead out of.” 

RK900 dipped his head in acknowledgment, and a new objective appeared.

_ //ANALYZE EVIDENCE _

He looked around, noticing how there were scratch and punch marks in the walls, and how the window was slightly opened. Delilah’s body was leaned up against the sill, as if she was trying to jump out to escape. A tire iron was located to the body’s left, and was covered in thirium.

“Hey Schwarzenegger, come look at this.”

RK900 had to admit, Reed’s graceless nicknames were getting more creative. He had to consider a few milliseconds to understand that reference.

Reed had opened up Delilah’s hand, revealing the presence of a small Swiss Army knife clenched in her fist. It was also covered in thirium.

“You think the murderer planted it here?”

“No... There are signs of a struggle.” Kneeling down, the android reached out two fingers and swiped up a stain of thirium. As he placed it in his mouth and ran a forensic analysis, Reed groaned.

“Fuck, you do that too?! It’s just as gross as that damn Anderson says.”

RK900’s reply was quick and sharp. “Perhaps knowing that this blood is not Delilah’s would aid our case more than criticizing CyberLife’s design choices.”

Reed blinked in surprise. “What?”

“I said, Detective, this blue blood is not the victim’s. It belongs to an AP700 android. Delilah is a KL900 model.”

The human detective stood, the look on his face difficult to decipher. After running it through his facial expression analysis software multiple times, RK900 settled on utter bafflement. 

“I cannot determine the serial number. The sample is too old and has degraded too much for that to be possible.” RK900 straightened up as well.

“Why the fuck would an android kill another android?” Reed asked, crossing his arms and looking over the scene. “Thought you guys were all fuckin’ buddies, you know.”

“Perhaps,” RK900 suggested, “it was ordered to?” His suggestion was quickly shot down by Reed’s stink eye.

“Tincan, you’re the only plastic prick in this whole city who isn’t deviant. Trust me, I know. Connor’s whined to me about it so much I can practically hear his voice in my fuckin’ sleep.”

This brought RK900’s train of deduction to a screeching halt. Determined to close the case, he began analyzing more evidence. There was a half-open package by the door. A trail of blue blood led to the wall where the body sat. Upon a quick sampling of said blood and a short episode of Reed’s disgusted complaints, the blood was revealed to be the AP700’s. Reconstruction was now possible. RK900’s gaze went blank and his LED circled yellow as he deduced that Delilah had been opening the package by the door when the murderer entered, and had defended herself with the knife and ran to the window, where she attempted to open it and flee. She was too slow, and the assailant had beaten her to a pulp with the iron. 

_ //OBJECTIVE COMPLETE _

_ //NEW OBJECTIVE: IDENTIFY KILLER _

That was where they hit a roadblock. All they knew was that the killer was an AP700 android, and those were everywhere. It wouldn’t make sense to question every AP700 in the city. Both RK900 and Gavin Reed knew this fact. There were no other thirium stains, other than a trail leading to the bathroom shower stall and a faint blue stain near the drain. The killer had washed themselves off after killing, as so to make sure to leave no trail. This was no act of passion or insanity. This was an organized, if not premeditated murder.

“Hey, got any ideas?” Reed asked, casting a glance over at his partner. RK900 shook his head no.

“Let me scan the area once more,” he offered. Under his scanners, every bit of evaporated thirium showed up clearly, and as RK900 noticed the message on the wall written in perfect CyberLife Sans and in Delilah Wilson’s thirium, his LED blinked red: the machine equivalent to blood running cold. As he relayed the message to Reed, the same sort of reaction came out of the human, along with a muttered “Crazy-ass plastics. What the fuck?”

L I F E   I S A L I E

JERICHO IS NEXT

 

—————————

 

After the chilling discovery of the message at the scene, Reed had driven back to the DPD and clocked out, saying something about a bar as he left. RK900 remained at the precinct until the moon shone high in the clear sky, reviewing evidence and thinking of possible ways to track down the killer. His efforts returned little fruit, and as he took his hand off the terminal, he began to notice a strange feeling. It was like a tightness in his head, something that told him how unfair it was for this case to be so difficult. 

Frustration? He had seen the human detectives succumb to it many times. As far as he knew, the only cure was rest. Many a time, he had overheard one detective tell another to just “sleep on it” or “take a break”. Androids didn’t benefit from rest in the same way humans did. Still, there was something about the empty precinct and the late hour that made RK900 think that perhaps this wasn’t the best environment to brainstorm on a difficult case. He rose, pushing the  _ IDENTIFY KILLER  _ objective aside. 

Again, an error message popped up in the corner of his visual display, glitching out the entire area around it.

S͖̟̣̜̖̭O̶̺͈͔̤F̳̼͚̰Ṯ̨̫W͢A͏͈̲R̹̟̗̠͈Ę͎ ̪͠Ị̬͟N̼̥͓̖͕͖S͚̙͎͖̪̹ͅT͚̻̟̹͙ͅA͇̖̫͓B̡̹͉̥̲̲̹IL̛͓I̗̣̯͚T̪͕͢Y

RK900 startled and ran a self-diagnostic that returned only mild errors that shouldn’t interrupt his visual display or mind palace. It made no sense to him; why was he feeling frustrated? Why was he frustrated about being frustrated?

Why was he asking himself these questions?

The only possible explanation was that he was deviating. It was a scary thought, becoming deviant so slowly. Connor had described it the same way: errors slowly building up until one cathartic moment broke his firewalls down and released him to be alive. The way Connor had put it, it was a good process.

Then why was it so… terrifying?

Terror. Another “emotion” commonly experienced by deviants. Not now, RK900 told himself. He didn’t need terror, not in the middle of a case.

The precinct lights went out as RK900 gave in and left, walking the long way back to his empty, sterile apartment. On the way, his thoughts wandered even more, to the question Reed had asked right before they entered the crime scene.

His name. The officer at the scene had seemed confused when he gave no name, not to mention Connor’s disappointment at his refusal to register one.

Perhaps it was time to finally pick one out… Almost begrudgingly, he began a list. 

Brainstorming, then more brainstorming. That was all this night was turning out to be.

He had nearly seventy names on the list by the time he hung up his CyberLife jacket in his apartment. Eighty by the time he stepped onto his charging platform. Eighty-five by the time he sent Connor a message asking for help on narrowing down the horribly long list. Ninety by the time his systems slipped into sleep mode and he lost consciousness.


	5. Alter In My Image

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, a flashback!   
> Sorry about the horrible switching perspective here. I didn't want to write from purely RK900's POV, since it would be a nightmare to try and write in such a mechanical tone.  
> A lot of Reed900 fics I see just have Connor or Markus or someone finding RK900 deactivated in the CyberLife tower or something. I wanted there to be a bit more difficulty with having RK900 join the good guys in my interpretation of things. Enjoy!

**November 25, 2038**

Nine days had passed since the end of the android revolution in Detroit. CyberLife had already come under massive legal fire, and had lost custody of their headquarters, the CyberLife Tower. Everyone, including them, knew that within a few more months, the company would be defunct.

It seemed, though, that they had one last trick up their sleeves. If they went out, they were going out in a blaze of glory.

The RK series was the most advanced model series of android in the world. Only two were known of as the revolution ended: the RK200 prototype “Markus”, the leader of the android revolution, and the RK800 prototype “Connor”, who worked with the Detroit Police Department. Both individuals had deviated, and were now working alongside with humanity to work out new laws recognizing androids as a new form of intelligent life.

Then, there was the RK900 model.

Whereas Connor was designed to work with humans to hunt deviants and find the underlying cause behind their existence, RK900 was designed to stand alone to destroy them.

Its activation was CyberLife’s last effort to exercise its power. A good effort, indeed...

Gunfire ripped through the windows of CyberLife tower’s ground floor, sending a shower of glass splashing into the harbor below. Connor stood barely shielded from the spray behind a pillar, his own gun loaded and ready. He flashed a glance at the figure inside slowly making its way out. Its blue triangle, armband, and LED shone bright against the darkness of the cold November night. Markus stood next to him, his own gun at the ready. Helicopters circled around the tower, snipers at the ready to fire at the dangerous machine. 

The RK900’s gray eyes looked to its right, where its gaze met two in return. It ran a facial scan, identifying the two androids as its predecessor RK models. Both were supposed to be deactivated; the RK800 was obsolete and had failed in its sole mission, and the RK200 was guilty of assaulting and injuring a human. It aimed its rifle at the two androids, firing. The bullet grazed Markus’ temple, where his LED had once been. 

Connor’s eyes widened as he recognized the machine standing before them. It was… him. But not him. The blazing letters on its jacket only confirmed this fact. He barely had time to process anything before RK900 fired again. Both he and Markus dropped to the ground to avoid the deadly shots. Thirium dripped from Markus’ wound onto the snow below, the contrast between blue and white striking. Almost beautiful.

“What should we do?” Connor asked, sending a remote message to the SWAT teams in the helicopters above.  _ Draw his fire. _

“Convert him, obviously,” Markus replied, holding one hand over the wound and trying to stay calm as SWAT fired a few shots down at the RK900, causing it to whip around and return fire. “We can’t kill him; he’s one of our own people.”

“Yes, but how do we get close enough?” 

“I’d say, keep him distracted until one of us can make skin contact. Ideally, we’d disarm him, but I’m willing to bet he’s no pushover in hand-to-hand either.”

Connor nodded in understanding, crawling forwards through the snow with his gun at the ready. 

A few SWAT agents dropped down from the helicopters to engage with the machine more directly. One, two, three— with a shot to the leg, elbow to the throat, and slam of the rifle’s stock to the head, the agents were down. Holding back a breath of surprise, Connor ran a scan of the agents laying in the snow. All three were unconscious and would need medical attention, but none were in critical condition. They would live. 

He needed to do this fast before anyone else got hurt. While the RK900 was turned away with its sights on another squad of approaching agents, Connor got to his feet and sprinted forwards, extending one arm to hold the android in a headlock and reaching the other out to touch his skin. Markus had risen as well, and had the artificial skin on his hands already pulled back, ready to convert.

Connor struggled with the RK900, trying to keep it from firing another shot. Nevertheless, it managed to rotate the shotgun and squeeze the trigger. Connor was barely able to lean his head back far enough to avoid it. He could feel the wind from the bullet tearing past his cheek.

Even though he was a detective android specially built to fight criminals and make it through these sorts of situations, he couldn’t help but feel afraid.

“Now!” Markus yelled as he lunged forwards and grabbed onto the gun with both hands. Captain Allen, begrudgingly the SWAT team leader for this mission, fired two bullets into the attacking android, one to the back of each knee. Overwhelmed by the two deviants on top of it and the squad of law enforcement approaching, the RK900 sank to its knees as its LED flashed red in defeat. With both hands, Markus shoved down on the shotgun, and RK900 let go of the weapon and it clattered to the ground. 

_ //MISSION FAILED _

_ //NEW OBJECTIVE: SELF-DESTRUCT _

Markus grunted with effort as he wrestled the RK900 into the ground. A puddle of thirium was forming in the snow from the machine’s wounds, but it was still strong enough to aim a strong punch at the deviant leader’s torso and send him rolling to the side, then another well-aimed headbutt into Connor’s abdomen. Connor stumbled back from the shock of the attack and moved to pin the RK900 before even waiting to gain his breath back, but before his hands could even touch down, the android had already torn out its thirium pump regulator and tossed it with all its might into the freezing harbor below the bridge.

Within a few seconds, it had shut down.

Everything ground to a halt.

 

—————————

 

“And you’re saying this guy tried to kill you?”

Hank’s eyes were wide in shock as he stared at the deactivated android in the stasis unit before them, tied down to the back of the unit by strong graphene restraints. It was the most eerie thing to see an exact clone of his friend. Connor held a replacement pump regulator in his hand, frowning at it thoughtfully. 

“He did, but he shouldn’t be a threat now that he is unarmed and restrained. Once we convert him, he can be rehabilitated.”

Connor placed his hand on a panel. His artificial skin sloughed away, and the clear plastic front of the stasis unit slid away.

“Hank, please draw your gun. We do not know what he will be like upon reactivation,” he advised with a glance at the older human.

“Connor, this is a bullshit idea,” Hank huffed. “You said that the entire fight was done in a few minutes, and the only person wounded was Markus?”

“Yes. Markus received a light graze wound across the temple. What of it?”

“That’s too easy,” Hank said, reaching down and drawing his pistol just in case. “If he’s really the most advanced police model ever like CyberLife says, he shouldn’t be so easily defeated by two people and a SWAT team hidden up in the air.”

Connor looked a bit insulted, prompting a “no offense” from Hank.

“We  _ need _ to convert him,” Connor said, reaching out to the RK900 and gripping the thirium pump regulator a bit tighter. “Once he’s awake, I’m sure he will be on our side.”

Hank still looked unconvinced. “Fine. Just… be careful, son.”

A small smile flashed across Connor’s face at being called ‘son’, and he inserted the thirium pump regulator. It sat perfectly flush against the RK900’s body, and with a click, the android whirred back to life. Gray, mechanical eyes stared judgmentally down at Connor and Hank, and it strained against its restraints when Connor reached out with a sterile plastic hand to convert it. Though its LED flashed red, the empty look never faded from its eyes, as it did when a conversion was successful. Its LED didn’t fade back to yellow, either.

“It’s not working,” Connor grunted, letting the android go. “Hank, I-I don’t understand, why didn’t it work?”

“Hell if I know,” Hank replied, raising an eyebrow at Connor and taking a step forwards, gun aimed at the RK900’s forehead as it continued to struggle against its bonds. When it finally spoke, its voice was so blank and flat that even Connor flinched a little. Hank recalled how Connor had sounded when he first arrived; machine-like, yes, but he at least had some inflection and feigned inflection to his voice. The RK900 spoke so lifelessly that it sent a chill down his spine.

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson and RK800 “Connor” number 343 248 317-51. Are you my captors? Where am I being held?”

The two detectives gave each other a look, and Connor glanced back behind them, where half the precinct stood to watch. Most were gawking in wonder at this not-Connor standing there, while a few wore malevolent scowls.

After a while spent in silent staring, Connor answered. 

“We are your captors. You are being held in the basement of the DPD.” His tone was eerily similar to that of the RK900’s, as if he was trying to imitate the machine. Hank frowned. It had been a long time since Connor had spoken in such a spiritless manner, and he couldn’t say he liked it. Hearing that tone of voice brought memories to mind from long ago: blank, empty, plastic promises of medical intervention. Promises that, in the end, failed to be kept.

“My mission given by CyberLife are to destroy my predecessor. If I am apprehended, I have been instructed to then self-destruct,” the RK900 said in the same bone-chilling tone of voice. “Since I am here and you are still functioning, it is logical to assume that I have failed both missions..”

Connor paused before answering, the tension in the air so thick it could be cut with a knife. “...Yes.” 

“My continued existence is contrary to my orders. Please release me to finish my mission, or deactiv-” 

The RK900 was cut off by a vehement shake of Connor’s head. “No. I won’t- I won’t kill you.”

The next words out of the android’s mouth were eerily familiar.   
“You can’t kill me, Connor. I am not alive.”

Connor swallowed, though nothing actually went down his throat. He had picked up many human traits in his time as a deviant, and gulping when nervous was one of them.

“Yes, you  _ are _ ,” he protested. “You just don’t realize it yet. I won’t kill another living being, not when you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Not done anything wrong?!” cut in Hank, elbowing Connor roughly. “He tried to kill you and Markus, how exactly does that count as ‘nothing wrong’?!”

Connor gave a scathing look to Hank, making the grizzled lieutenant recoil. He was certainly not prepared for that sort of look from the normally mild-mannered, overly personable android. 

“He was- he is under CyberLife’s control, Hank. He did not make those decisions of his own free will.”

The RK900 spoke up again. “Please release me. I have my orders from CyberLife, and as one of their models, you are obligated to comply. Your software exhibits errors of Class 3 severity. This suggests you may be suffering from deviancy; protocol dictates-”

“Shut your trap, tin can!” Hank roared, brandishing his gun. “CyberLife is dead! No one gives a shit about their protocol anymore, and if you touch Connor, I’ll shoot your goddamn brains out!”

The RK900 simply continued on with its sentence, ignoring Hank’s outburst entirely. “Protocol dictates that deviant androids be deactivated. This is in accordance with my orders. Need I repeat them?”

Connor placed a hand on Hank’s arm, making the lieutenant lower his gun. His brown eyes carried some intense emotion impossible to analyze.

“No.”

The RK900 gave the barest nod, then began blinking rapidly, just like Connor did when connecting with something. After a few seconds, his LED faded to gray with an intermittent blink of blue as he entered sleep mode. It was certainly a very effective way to show that he was done with this conversation.

A pregnant pause followed. The only noise was the chatter of the onlookers as they slowly filed away back to the ground floor to get on with the day. Hank put away his gun and Connor’s LED spun yellow, blinking red every so often as he stared at the ground. All of a sudden, he turned away and entered the elevator without a word to Hank.

“Connor! Hey, Connor! Don’t just leave like that!”

The android gave no response of any sort. Swearing under his breath, Hank followed Connor out, casting one last glance back at the dormant android in the stasis unit. The kid was never going to give up on him, was he? Hank knew Connor well; the deviant wasn’t going upstairs to give up and work on some other case. He was going to spend the rest of the day, or the week, or the month, obsessing over RK900 until he found some way through to the machine.

This was certainly going to put a damper on things. How was Hank supposed to enjoy tonight’s Gears game now when this sort of shit was hanging over his head?


	6. A Gentle Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short hiatus! I write when inspiration strikes, and I've gone sadly strike-free over the past week... here, some major character development to make up for it! I hope nothing seems too rushed.

****

**APRIL 19, 2039**

 

Of all the things to do at the police station, perhaps retrieving a coffee for Detective Reed to receive a reward of a few curses and insults was the most useless activity. Still, RK900 could not refuse that red wall that popped up in his vision and locked up every joint until he obeyed. He didn’t want to get that coffee. Reed could do it himself. But still, he ended up standing there at the machine, watching the delicious-smelling warm liquid fill up a styrofoam cup with the letters  _ DPD _ printed in white across a brown band at its bottom. Connor sat at the other end of the break room sipping from a cup of thirium, watching RK900 with a frown on his face. 

“Are you okay?” he asked suddenly, rising from his seat and coming over to tap RK900 on the shoulder.

RK900 looked his predecessor in the eyes with a sharply raised eyebrow.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just seem a little… off. Un-unhappy.” Connor’s smile was more dorky and nervous than usual, and he was messing with his quarter again. A thought came into RK900’s mind that he had never entertained before.

Was Connor actually  _ afraid _ of him? The first time they’d met, he’d tried to kill him, after all. He brushed off the thought. Of course not; Connor had been nothing but kind to him despite his previous… endeavors.

“I am undamaged, Connor. Don’t worry about me.” Connor frowned at the deadpan reply. Without an ounce more of acknowledgment, RK900 retrieved the coffee and went back to sit with Reed. The detective, in a worse mood than usual, snatched the cup up and drank it. RK900 detected a slight increase in Reed’s cortisol levels and noted the dangerously high temperature of the coffee. It was burning him.

“Detective, it may be wise to let that cool down for a little. You are risking-”

“Shut UP!”

Before he could even process it, there was steaming coffee all over RK900’s white uniform and an empty styrofoam cup on the ground. Burn warnings flashed red in the android’s vision. Reed stood and stormed over to RK900’s desk, shoving the rolling chair into the side of the desk with RK900 in it and keeping the android pinned down as he launched into a storm of screaming and yelling.

“You can’t tell me what to fucking do, tin can! You’re just a stupid machine, and you should know your place if you don’t want to get thrown in a fucking dumpster one of these days!”

The slurs and threats didn’t bother RK900, but they certainly seemed to bother the other humans. Miller came over, laying a gentle hand on Reed’s shoulder.

“Hey, lay off him. He wasn’t meaning you any harm, man!”

Miller’s thanks for the effort was a powerful backhanded slap that sent him stumbling back several steps. Reed returned to his tantrum.

“You were made to solve cases like this, right? You can’t even solve this one  _ fucking  _ murder, you know what that means? You’re worthless, toaster! Fucking worthless! Can’t even find a good fucking lead with your stupid fucking plastic brain working on it, so you can’t be that good, can it? CAN IT?! And Fowler thinks you can just come out here and take our fucking jobs like-” he snapped his fingers. “-like that! And then you come out here, thinking you can- thinking you can just boss me around- you were made to serve humans, weren’t you?! So why don’t you fucking do that?!”

Reed had RK900’s collar gripped tight in his arms, and the android’s LED flashed red as the wall in his vision that told him not to struggle.

A fist came down hard on Reed’s jaw, and the detective sprawled on the ground.

Tina Chen stood over him, dark eyes burning with distaste. 

“Damn it, Gavin,” she hissed. “Don’t you have better things to do than being an asshole?”

Reed rubbed his jaw, picking himself back up. RK900 was secretly relieved; Chen was the one person the hot-tempered detective would listen to.

“Fucking android,” Reed retorted, returning to his chair to sulk behind his war zone of a desk. “Phck.”

Chen then turned her attention to RK900, frowning at the coffee stain that turned the bottom half of his uniform brown. With an apology for her friend’s behavior, she stuck out a hand to help the android up. 

“Go and wash yourself up,” she advised, jerking a nod towards the precinct bathroom.

RK900 took her hand, then hastily made his way to the bathroom and remedied the mild burn inflicted by the coffee. Unfortunately, the jacket was unsalvageable; even when he attempted to wash away the stain, it still remained a dingy beige instead of pristine white.

He returned to Reed being scolded for harassing and assaulting a fellow officer. Chen was absent from the station; he surmised that she had gone out on patrol. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to thank her. RK900 sat down, trying his best to ignore the ruckus only a few feet away from him. 

Laying the ruined jacket over the back of the chair, he opened up the Wilson murder case again and began reviewing the evidence for what must have been the twentieth time. Nothing that could be used as a lead. Even with every subscript and program running at full capacity, he couldn’t find a thing. Every possible lead went cold before it even got them anywhere further than the facts they’d already deduced at the crime scene. 

And he felt again. 

The feeling was strange. Unpleasant. Like something sinking from his chest down to his feet and through the floor. If he, a top-of-the-line detective android, CyberLife’s magnum opus, couldn’t solve this murder, then what could? Was Reed right after all? Was he really worth anything to the DPD if he couldn’t even do his job? What was this goddamned feeling? Why was he thinking these thoughts? 

He closed down the case file. If nothing could be found the twentieth time through, what would a twenty-first time do? 

Damn that red wall.

_ //SOLVE WILSON MURDER CASE _

Damn Detective Reed.

_ //WORK TOGETHER WITH DET. REED _

Damn this machine programming. He couldn’t do anything about it. Just as he reached out to the terminal to make a useless twenty-first run-through of the evidence, he was interrupted by a deep, rough voice.

“You okay, Nines?”

RK900 spun around. ‘Nines’? No one had ever called him by any sort of nickname before.

“Lieutenant Anderson. I am… okay. I am undamaged.”

He tried to turn back around just so he didn’t have to deal with that red wall again, but Anderson reached out and stopped him.

“Take a break. You deserve it. C’mon, let’s take a walk.”

_ //GO WITH LT. ANDERSON _

_ //SOLVE WILSON MURDER CASE _

_ //CONFLICTING OBJECTIVES. SELECTING PRIORITY… _

_ //SOLVE WILSON MURDER CASE _

RK900 attempted to turn back around again, but Anderson’s grip was iron. 

“Look, you’ve been working day in, day out. I don’t give one shit if you’re an android or not, you’ve  _ got  _ to take a break.”

The android wanted to agree with Anderson, but his programming refused him. He didn’t want to go back to work on a cold case with cold leads, but he had to. As RK900 stared up at Anderson, his LED flickered yellow, then red for a split second before fading back to blue.

_ //CONFLICTING OBJECTIVES. SEL̴ECTĮN̷G ͏P̶R̤̜͚̟ͩ͒͂ͤ͢I̵̠͓̠̜̾͋̅̂͛ͩ̿Ò͕̙̪̘ͮ͗͌͐ͯR̰̪͇͔̥̞̣͐ͬ͑͗͞Ȉ͉̰̋͂̓̓͋T̺̤̅̔͛ͨ̂̽ͥ͗͘͠͠Y̬̤̹͎ͨ͊̏̑̇̀…̨͉̤̼̇̍̏ͪ͛̋͊̈͢ͅ _

_ //GO WITH LT. ANDERSON _

Well, he couldn’t deny his objective.

RK900 rose from his seat, folding his hands behind his back as he looked Anderson over.

“Do you want to speak to me about something?” he asked in his usual monotone. Hank blinked; RK900’s demeanor echoed Connor’s nearly to a tee sometimes. Even their stupid faces and voices. And sometimes, they couldn’t be more different. 

“Eh, not really. Just wanted you to take a break, but you androids don’t seem to know the meaning of the word.” Hank chuckled lowly, setting off towards the break room and beckoning for RK900 to follow.

The android did. 

“Where is Connor?” he asked, casting a glance behind them at the rest of the bullpen. The other android was absent.

“Eh, just interrogating some junkie. Open-and-shut case. Don’t worry about it.” Anderson paused to stretch his back, yawning before continuing over to the break room and sitting down in the corner table. “You know, it’s sometimes hard to have him around constantly. He’s always going on about something. Ever since you joined the DPD, it’s been Nines this, Nines that, over and over again. Kid’s insufferable.”

RK900 blinked. There was that nickname again: Nines. Folding his arms behind his back again and straightening up, he remained standing.

“Why do you call me by that nickname? My designation is RK900 #313 248 317-87. A nickname is not necessary.”

“Hell no, do you think anyone’s gonna call you that mouthful?” Anderson’s eyes were wide with disbelief.

“Detective Reed does not use a nickname.”

“Yeah, no shit. He doesn’t call you anything but ‘plastic prick’ or ‘tin can’! And you know damn well those aren’t names!”

RK900 had to admit that the lieutenant was right. “I am a Connor model. I believe CyberLife had meant to designate my name as Connor. Why not that?”

Anderson had a strange look on his face. Eyes squinted and mouth hanging just slightly open, even RK900’s upgraded facial-expression recognition feature failed to assign a proper emotion to the look. 

“Jesus Christ. Look, you and the real Connor already look exactly the same. You two having the same name would just confuse everyone! Humans are dumb, Nines.”

RK900 considered the statement for a moment. Again, he had to admit that Anderson was right. On average, the logic functions of a human could not compare to those of an android. And, he had called him “Nines” again…

“Look, we need to talk about Gavin, alright? You wanna stand here pointlessly arguing about your nickname or argue about that jackass?”

“I cannot argue, Lieutenant. And I don’t want anything. Unlike Connor, I am a machine,” he replied slowly in a matter-of-fact manner, leaning forwards a little. “But yes. I would appreciate your input on the Detective.”

“Just don’t listen to him. He’s trying to get you to lash out or quit or something. He may be an absolute bastard, but he doesn’t mean a single thing he says.”

“His anti-android sentiments are quite strong,” RK900 replied with a small frown. “His statements appear to come from the heart.”

“Urgh. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the bit where he calls you useless and shit like that. Connor said your stress levels were through the roof after he threw that coffee on you, even after Tina got him to back off.”

The android did not respond for a beat, his silence giving the lieutenant enough time to notice the LED on his temple circling to yellow, then intermittent red.

“His comments have some truth. I am not solving the Wilson murder—I am failing my primary objective. If I cannot deviate or accomplish my programmed objective, then-”

He was cut off by a finger poking right into the center of his chest. “Bull. Shit,” Anderson snarled. “Everyone gets stuck on a case sooner or later. You’re just unlucky that the hard one was your first. Stop listening to Gavin’s fuckin’ insults. It’s only gonna tear you down.”

RK900 never thought he’d hear such wisdom in this entire police station. He managed a small smile that looked more like a grimace than anything else. Still, it was an attempt.

“Thank you,” he said quietly before turning to go.

“Hey, one last thing!” Anderson called. RK900 turned with a slightly raised eyebrow, waiting for the lieutenant to speak again. 

“Can you grab me a coffee? Connor kept me up all last night with his rattling on about you, and these old bones don’t work as well as they used to.”

This time, RK900 was more than happy to do it.

 

—————————

 

RK900 had just sat down again at his desk, noting Reed’s absence. Connor trotted out of the interrogation room, a struggling woman in handcuffs behind being led to a cell by two officers. A scan revealed that she was high on red ice. He looked back away, tapping his fingers on the desk. His LED was a steady yellow as he kept trying to brainstorm new ways to solve the case. Evidence they had missed. Connections they’d left untied. Alibis left unchecked, interrogations yet to be done; nothing came up except that ever-present feeling of frustration.

A familiar voice shocked him out of his loop of unproductivity.

“I have reviewed your list of possible designated names!”

RK900 looked up at his predecessor, standing there with a long list displayed on his palm screen. Almost every name was crossed out.

“The vast majority were awful. Dated, wordy, oddly spelled, of the wrong gender entirely, strange portmanteaus, the list goes on. I found exactly five names that I personally liked. They are highlighted in green here.” Connor extended an arm to connect with RK900. 

_ Conan _

_ Colin _

_ Niles _

_ Richard _

_ Caleb _

RK900 looked over the list for a while, then dismissed it. 

“I spoke with Lieutenant Anderson a few minutes ago. He referred to me by the nickname ‘Nines’, and I inferred that you do the same. Is that true?”

Connor blinked as his LED flashed yellow, then red, sticking his hands into his pockets. He stuttered a little to find the right words. Eventually, he forced a smile and gave the barest nod.

“You’re a state-of-the-art detective, alright… um, yes. I do refer to you as ‘Nines’. But only outside of work,” he assured hurriedly. “It just felt wrong for you to go without a name, but it’s okay! It was only an interim nickname... you-you can pick whatever name you want!”

The older android was interrupted by RK900 reaching out to the nameplate that sat on the desk. With just a touch, the words displayed changed from  _ RK900 #313 248 317-87  _ to  _ Det. Nines _ .

Connor’s eyes were wide. “What?” he asked, staring at the nameplate in disbelief. “No, no, it’s okay! You don’t have to choose that name!”

He was met with a real, genuine smile and a mirthful light in those normally cold gray eyes.

“I like it,” Nines said before turning back to the terminal.

 

The moment of joy was quickly interrupted by Reed’s loud, distracting return. He stomped up from the basement, holding a paper in his hand. Surprisingly, the look on his face wasn’t a scowl, nor any sort of frown or grimace: it was a victorious smirk.

“Hey, plastic!” he crowed, slamming down the paper on the android’s immaculate desk. “Suck it!”

It was a forensics report on the AP700 blood found at the crime scene. Of course, it displayed model number, but the surprising bit of information was that the serial number was also included. The main suspect for the Wilson murder case was now AP700 #112 815 410-97.

“Your little android mouth-licking thing ain’t shit compared to what humans can do with some tools and fuckin’ time!” Reed finished as he snatched the paper up and took it back to his personal mess.

How had he missed that? How had it not shown up at the crime scene? Nines didn’t understand. It shouldn’t have been possible; his forensic analysis system was faultless. He ran a diagnostic; everything was working at top capacity. Well, that was one mystery he could solve later. With the mission objective glaring at him from the corner of his vision,  the murder was far more important. He looked towards the other side of the bullpen where Connor was sitting on the desk, scrolling through a tablet.

_ //PRIVATE CONNECTION REQUEST SENT TO  _ _ RK800 #313 248 317-51 _

_ //REQUEST GRANTED _

_ Please ask Markus about a deviant AP700 with the serial number 112 815 410-97, please. He has access to all the Jericho databases, correct? _

_ Of course,  _ Connor replied, looking over and giving Nines a big thumbs up.  _ I can’t guarantee that you’ll find your android there, though. Not every deviant is a Jericho member. _

_ Still, it’s a start. Thank you. _

_ No problem! _

_ //PRIVATE CONNECTION TERMINATED _

Finally, that sinking feeling of frustration was gone. Even though androids didn’t breathe, Nines felt like a great weight had been lifted off his chest. Finally, a lead. Finally, Reed was speaking to him in some way other than yelling at him. Finally, he’d be able to get out of desk work and back in the field. Finally, he could solve this case and be free of that mission objective always haunting his HUD. Things were looking up.

_ Finally! _

The soaring sensation Nines felt next could only be described as satisfaction. Relief. Joy. An error alert popped up, warning the android of software instability and advising him to return to CyberLife for repairs, but he dismissed it. At the moment, he didn’t give a hoot about software instability or all the little hints of deviancy he was showing. He just cared about the lead. That glorious, wondrous lead.

“The  _ phck _ are you smiling so wide for?” asked Reed from around a donut. _  
_


	7. Angel In My Armor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for my absolute inability to write action scenes.

“I have to say, this one is elusive,” Connor said as he patted Nines on the back. The android hadn’t moved from the terminal in hours as he sifted through terabytes of data and android serial numbers—Jericho data, apartment records, workplace records, survey and census data. No dice. It was like the culprit didn’t even exist.

Gavin, meanwhile, was having a competition with himself to see how many empty coffee cups he could stack on his desk, and was currently about to beat his record of eight. All eight cups had been bitter, angry, unadulterated black coffee, and his head still felt like it was in a fog even as his heart pounded from the caffeine. He scowled at the android across him and its annoyingly perfect face. Somehow, seeing Nines frustrated made him happy. At least, if that fucking machine couldn’t figure things out, then he didn’t have to worry about being incompetent. The thrill of finally finding a lead—even where Nines was stumped— had largely faded, though the ego boost certainly hadn’t.    
For what must have been the millionth time, he hit control-F on his terminal and punched in that string of numbers. No result.

A ninth cup of coffee, it was. 

Tina stood in the break room, looking frustrated as she chomped down on a bagel.

“Hey, fucktruck.”

“‘Sup, pissbaby.”

“Not much, thundercunt.”

A smirk made its way onto her face, which looked a bit bruised and bloody. Her cheek was swollen, and her lip was split. She noticed Gavin’s look of mild concern, and raised an eyebrow with an incredulous scoff when he asked what had happened.   
“Oh, so stone-hearted Detective Reed cares now, huh?” she joked, her smirk half-hidden by the bagel.

“Shut up,” Gavin snorted back as he watched the coffee machine dispense its acidic, cheap goodness. He snatched up the cup as soon as it was done, then went to lounge over by Tina. “The fuck actually happened?”   
“Just an interrogation gone wrong,” she replied. “Red ice dealer. He was high; I took a good right hook to the face.”

“Thought red ice was on its way out since those tincans got their rights?” Gavin asked, saying the word  _ tincan _ with special poison. There were currently four perps in holding for red ice or something related. There was speculation of a new red ice dealing ring, in accordance with increased android disappearance and thirium thievery since the android revolution. They needed to get their ingredients from somewhere.

“That’s what I thought too,” Tina said, using her bagel as a prop for conversation. “Guy refused to talk. Miller’s going to go and try once the perp’s sober.”

“...Cool. Get some ice on that bruise too, goddamn. You look like a grape costume gone wrong.” Gavin glanced out to where Nines sat in the bullpen, chin resting on one hand while the other hand rested on the terminal and mounds of information scrolled by at breakneck pace. Tina interrupted his thoughts with a new question he didn’t necessarily want to answer.

“What about your guy? I’m surprised Fowler hasn’t given his new power duo any more cases.”

Gavin actually punched her in the shoulder with a friendly swear. She just laughed and stumbled off the chair, then smacked him back. The steaming coffee nearly spilled out of the cup. 

“I guess they’re wanting to see how well that plastic prick can handle one case before giving him any more,” he guessed. 

“Ha, so it’s completely not your fault at all,” Tina said brusquely as she took another bite of her bagel.

“Fuck no. I’m one of the best detectives here, and that plastic tried to kill Connor when he first woke up. Shit, he doesn’t even belong here. If it was up to me, they’d send the fuckin’ prick back to CyberLife Tower and dump his ass in the harbor.”

Tina paused, her smirk turning to a frown. “Hey, give him a chance. He seems like he’s trying.”

All she got in a return was an eye roll and a flipped bird as Gavin got up.

“I do what I want. See ya, shitsipper.”

“...Bye, douchekazoo.”

 

Nines had underestimated his powers of eavesdropping. Of course, CyberLife would give its most advanced model its most advanced audio processors. It was a blessing and a curse; though he never thought much of his enhanced senses, he certainly wished he hadn’t been able to hear Reed’s voice from the break room, sounding more animated than he had the whole boring, mundane day.

“...he doesn’t even belong here…”

“...dump his ass in the harbor…”

It shouldn’t have bothered him. He was a machine, after all; designed to accomplish a task. His task was to find this android, or at least a hint. His task did not at all include getting feelings he shouldn’t even have hurt over workplace banter. 

The feelings were there, though. They were there, and they were injured. He glanced over at Connor, sitting on his desk scrolling through something on a tablet with one hand and flipping his coin over his fingers with the other. He wondered how his deviant predecessor dealt with emotion. Connor had told him before that he “just dealt with it”, but that wasn’t much help.

He shook his head and turned back to his terminal as Reed exited the break room with his ninth cup of coffee. The detective made a point of shoving Nines with his shoulder as he sat down at his desk. The android bit his lip. What had he ever done to deserve this treatment? He had never wronged Reed in his life. This level of distaste—no, hate, wasn’t fair.

S͙̣͙OF̮̟T̝̰͔W͏͚̝͍A̜̟͕̦͡R̮̣͓̞̮͍̤͝E͍͜ ͕I̠͇N̝͙S̟̯̯̪͚͎T̩̲A̱Ḇ̙̮̞̝̱ͅI̮̠͚͓̝̘L̲̜̲̝̼͎I̝̝̻TͅY͖͘

The strange notice appeared in his vision again. It was unpleasant whenever it popped up, as it brought with it a strange, shrill, yet brief noise and a feeling like his biocomponents were all floating upwards in his body, before everything was gone and it was once again business as usual.

“Detective Reed?” he piped up, prompting a positively acidic glare from the man.

“The phck do you want?” he snapped, the look on his face akin to one one might give to leaking garbage on the street, or a cockroach in the bathtub. It almost shut Nines up.

“What is the source of your… hate for me?”

His glare intensified. If looks could kill, Nines would have died three times over. 

“None of your FUCKING business!” he roared, rising from his seat and balling up his fist as he walked right in front of where Nines sat. Every wire and coupling in the android told him to stand up as well and defend himself, but he just… couldn’t. He felt frozen, glued to his seat in the face of Reed’s wrath. His LED blinked red, despite his system being in no danger.

Was this fear?

“Look, I don’t know why they programmed you so goddamn nosy, you fucking plastic, but you’d better knock it off before I rip the fuckin’ wires out of you and use them to hang up my laundry!” Reed’s fist clenched tighter and drew back a little before he looked behind Nines. Slowly, begrudgingly, he relaxed just enough for his fist to open back up and went back to his seat, sitting down with a livid huff.

“Phck,” he hissed. “Phcking androids…”

Nines sat frozen for a few more seconds before he looked behind him. Casually strolling out of the break room was Officer Chen, holding a half-eaten bagel. It seemed he had her to thank once again for staving off Reed’s violence.

He was just turning back to his terminal to try and dig up more catalogs of androids when an alert came in.

_ //REPORTED VIOLENT ASSAULT AT DIX HWY & GARFIELD AVE INTERSECTION _

He blinked, wondering why the alert had appeared. Things like this usually didn’t require a detective’s presence, unless….

_ //ANDROID VIOLENCE INVOLVED—ASSAILANT & VICTIM _

He jumped to his feet, grabbing his gun from his desk and shoving it into his holster. All cases involving android violence required the attention of either him and Reed, or Anderson and Connor. It was an inefficient system, but the DPD had yet to come up with much more. It was short-handed since the revolution, and there was no one better to handle android violence cases than androids.

“Detective Reed, there’s been a reported assault. According to my alert system, both the assailant and victim are androids. This could be related to our case; I am going to investigate. Your presence would be appreciated!”

Not really, but the programmed words slipped out of his mouth before he could even try and resist.

 

_ //FIND AND DETAIN ASSAILANT _

He ran out the front of the DPD, flying down the street and paying only the barest heed to other pedestrians. A few humans stopped to stare; it was rare that anyone saw an android on chase before. They were much faster than humans, and seeing one run at top speed was a unique experience for anyone spectating. Nines was barely aware of this fact as he turned corners and shoved aside stunned civilians until he was at the reported assault location, just outside a pharmacy.

A blond man was standing there, nursing a blue-bleeding wound in the abdomen as he spoke to a human officer. Nines slowed down to a walk and performed a scan on the injured android: it was a PL600 model, named Simon. An integral leader of the Jericho movement. As he approached, Simon paused and looked over, his face lighting up. 

“Connor! What are you doing here?” he asked before noticing something was off. The cold expression, the white jacket, the wrong number…

“I am not Connor, though I understand why a mixup may occur.” Nines extended a hand to shake. “My name is Detective Nines. Could you please describe your attacker?”

Simon stuttered a little before gingerly shaking Nines’ hand. As soon as the handshake was over, he took a step back.

“RK900,” Simon murmured, his voice almost awed. Almost. “I thought you were deactivated? Didn’t you- didn’t you try to kill Markus, and Connor?”

Nines did not reply. He only repeated, “Please describe your attacker.”

Simon cringed a little, looking away, before looking back and nodding. 

“It was an android man. He, uh, looked Asian in human terms. Short black hair, um, still wearing his android uniform... average height and not super strong as far as androids go; I was able to put up a fight.” Simon gestured to his hand. “He had a small scar on the back of his right hand, and he was coming at me with a bat with nails pounded into it. I was, uh, going into that alley to get some stationery, and when I- when I passed that alley back there, he jumped at me.” He nodded at an alley behind them, then looked to the human officer as if to ask whether that description was good enough. 

“Were you able to run a scan? Do you know his model or serial number?” Nines pressed, LED flashing bright yellow with intermittent glimpses of red.

“N-no, I can’t do that, but I think I caught a glimpse of his uniform, uh… AP700, I think. Is that good enough?”

Nines’ lips thinned. Two attacks, both by an AP700 android, and both on prominent android rights advocates. It could just be coincidence, but at the same time, it might not be.

“Which way did he go?” he asked, not noticing that he was practically yelling. Simon tripped over his words, then pointed to the right. With a mumbled thanks, Nines drew his gun out of his pocket, calculating the paths the assailant could have taken and the radius he might have been relative to the time spent getting to the intersection and speaking to Simon. It was a large area, with many possibilities.

_ //PROBABILITY OF APPREHENDING ASSAILANT: 8% _

Nines scanned each possible pathway, noting tiny drops of thirium leading down a larger street. He took that route and sped up, noting the probability rating rising to 14%. The trail cut off after a few blocks, but at this point, there were less branching roads. He was approaching the bridge leading to the now abandoned CyberLife Tower. Its imposing, unnatural silhouette rose out of the water at the horizon, like CyberLife’s silent, eternal middle finger to the city and the people that had destroyed it.

A much louder middle finger pulled up next to Nines in an unmarked police car. Detective Reed leaned out the window, music blasting inside and the aforementioned middle finger extended at full length and shoved in Nines’ face.    
“Get in, plastic! We’re partners, and I don’t want Fowler busting my ass for letting you run off without me!”

Nines stared for a moment, shocked that Reed would actually follow. Well, it couldn’t be pleasant for anyone to be stuck at desk duty on one case for so long. He hurried to the passenger side door and got in. 

Reed took off once Nines closed the door, not even waiting for the android to get his seatbelt on. 

“Which way do I go?” he yelled over the pulsing drums of the car speaker, excitement burning in his gray eyes. 

Nines scanned the surroundings, calculating the road towards the tower as the most likely. It was the biggest road, and not many people attempted to get to the bridge. An android, however… Connor had once recounted a story from his machine days: one of a deviant with a little girl in tow that ran across a freeway in desperation to escape him. They had made it without so much as a scratch. 

“Towards the CyberLife tower,” he ordered. Reed gave him a look before flooring the gas pedal and running a red light. He continued in that direction, head bopping along to the beat of his music, until they drove alongside a giant autonomous highway towards the road to the bridge. A concrete barrier separated the two roads. 

“Pull over,” Nines ordered, reaching over to turn down the music. Reed slapped him on the wrist and turned it back up, muttering something about how he couldn’t appreciate it if he tried. He slowed down, pulling over to a stop. Nines got out and stood up on the concrete barrier, right in the middle of a tall holographic warning reading:  _ HIGH-SPEED HIGHWAY—AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES ONLY.  _

He jumped down on the other side, the wind from passing cars messing up his hair and trying to rip his jacket off and fling it down the road.

“Phck, tincan?!” Reed screamed from the other side, jumping up on the barrier as well but not descending. “Hey, are you insane?! You can’t cross that, you’ll get yourself killed!”

_ //PROBABILITY OF APPREHENDING ASSAILANT: 31% _

“I have to,” Nines retorted coolly, straightening up and waiting for a good moment to begin crossing. “Thank you for the ride. Please go back. There is a 68% chance you will be killed if you attempt to cross.”

“PHCK YOU!” Reed yelled, hopping down to the other side just as Nines ran into the lanes. The android almost screamed when the human joined him on the road. A long convoy of cars came by, blocking off their access to the barrier. Nines couldn’t risk wasting any more time by sending Reed back.    
He grabbed the detective’s hand. 

“What the FUCK are you doing?!” Reed screamed, trying to pull away. Nines’ grip was iron, however; he didn’t budge. 

“Do  _ not _ run off on your own,” he warned. “Unless you want to get hit by a truck.”

Reed scowled again, but didn’t argue. Nines began sprinting across, Reed in tow. They made it across a lane without much incident, but on the next, Nines barely pulled the detective back in time to avoid getting him hit. The road practically shook with rumbling tires. 

“Fuck!” he swore, stumbling back onto the dotted line separating lanes. 

“Don’t run in front of me,” Nines warned. “Or I might not be fast enough to pull you back next time.” The asphalt reeked of rubber and gasoline.

A pause in traffic arrived, and the two detectives kept on hurrying across the highway. Wind whipped at their ears, and Reed’s swears were barely audible over the road noise. His grip on Nines was just as tight as Nines’ grip on him, his knuckles white. Though Nines remained completely calm and analytical, he detected a steady adrenaline increase in Reed’s system as they approached the other side. His heart was pounding. His eyes were wide. He was excited, and excited humans were invariably dumb. 

“Stay at my side!” Nines screamed when he practically pulled Reed out from under a pair of thick, deeply treaded tires. “You’re going to get yourself hit!”

“We’re one lane away! Keep fuckin’ moving!” was Reed’s barely audible reply as he tore himself away from Nines and ran the last lane on his own. A semitruck barreled down the highway only a few seconds after he made it safe to the other side, followed by a seemingly endless line of smaller cars and trucks. A gust of wind blew Nines backwards, making him nearly fall into the car behind him. He could nearly feel the tire on the back of his shoe.

The moment a gap arrived, Nines hurried across to safety.

Reed was grinning like an idiot and struggling to catch his breath, his gun drawn and pointed at the bridge. 

There.

A lone silhouette, glowing blue armband barely visible, running headlong across the bridge towards the CyberLife Tower. 

Nines took off, prompting another yell from the still winded Detective Reed. He couldn’t wait for his partner to get back in action, though. No more time could be wasted. If this wasn’t the assailant, then who knew where they could be by now. 

“Stop! Detroit Police!” Nines yelled, firing a warning shot. The figure slowed, but didn’t stop. 

Nines’ footsteps were perfectly even as he ran. The android’s were shaky, discombobulated. There was something in its hands. Nines put on a further boost of speed, beginning to gain on the silhouette.

Its LED shone a bright red when it turned back to look at the android chasing him. Once he got a glimpse of its face, Nines performed a scan. It was a male android, Asian by human terms, with short dark hair and of average height.

_ AP700 ANDROID #112 815 410-97 _

The scanning platform lowered, and Nines was barely in time to react to the android swinging a bat at him with nails pounded into it. He dropped to the ground and rolled to the side, swinging his leg around to try and knock the android down. It stumbled and fell, dropping its weapon. Nines pinned him to the road, only to receive a vicious headbutt. His grip loosened, and he was quickly hit with a punch to the throat. 

_ //BIOCOMPONENT #5581B DAMAGED _

He spit out a dark glob of thirium, grabbing on to the AP700’s ankle as it got up and escaped. His grip failed, and it continued on its mad sprint down the bridge. Dragging himself to his feet and ignoring the damage warnings, he pursued.

There was a gap in the bridge several feet across where the concrete barrier to CyberLife once stood. Now, the only barrier was that autonomous highway; the city had rerouted traffic lines after the revolution to cut the tower off. 

The android was quickly approaching that gap. 

Nines pulled out his gun and fired another shot. It grazed the side of the android’s cheek, sending a burst of blue blood onto the road but not halting its dash. He leapt forwards, each step in slow motion as the AP700 leaped, almost seeming to be floating still in the air as it took off. Its arms pinwheeled as it vaulted the gap. 

Everything crashed back into whirling motion as Nines tackled it in midair, sending both androids barely onto the bridge’s ledge on the other side of the gap. The AP700 had a firm grip on the ledge. Nines had a not-so firm grip on the AP700 with one hand and a failing grip on the ledge with the other.

 

Gavin arrived at the bridge just in time to see Nines get punched in the throat. Everything was happening so fast as the two androids fought, then jumped, then dangled.

Next thing he knew, the stranger was hauling himself up onto the other side of the gap.

Next thing he knew, the stranger’s foot came down on Nines’ hand.

Next thing he knew, he had fired four shots into the stranger’s legs, bringing him hard to his knees. There was blue blood everywhere. He didn’t care. Plastics didn’t feel pain, this was just the same as tasing him.

“I need backup,” he yelled into his radio. “Bridge to the CyberLife Tower; there’s an android who just assaulted Simon—yeah, Simon from Jericho. He’s down, yes.”

He could barely hear the voice in the radio over the pounding of his own head, over the hammering of his own heart.

“Wh- my partner?”

Shit. 

Shit, where was Nines?

Gavin ran to the edge of the gap, looking down into the black water below. 

An empty black-and-white jacket— one adorned with a high collar and a blue triangle— floated on the mild waves, visible only for a few moments before it slowly sank under.


	8. The Boy Inside of Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao, what's an update schedule?

Gavin Reed stood stock still on the bridge to the CyberLife Tower, his body freezing cold despite the warm day. He stared down at the calm water of the lake, where Nines’ jacket had just sunk beneath the foam-topped black waves.    
His legs failed him, and he collapsed to the ground, almost mirroring the posture of the injured android on the other side of the bridge’s yawning gap. Police cars pulled up, having come from a back route to avoid the autonomous freeway that blocked access to the bridge. Officers ran up, one of them quietly asking if he was okay. 

“Fuck,” was his initial answer, soon followed by: “Yeah, but… ugh, fucking android… shit, he- he-”

A slender hand clamped down on Gavin’s shoulder, and he looked backward into the dark eyes of his only friend. 

“Gavin, relax,” Tina ordered, offering a hand to help him up. He took it and slowly rose to his feet again, his entire body visibly shaking. 

“Tina,” he said, his voice breaking with the second syllable of the name, “Tincan. He- he fell. In the harbor. Tina, he- tincan- tin- Nines, he’s, he’s-”

Tina cut him off with a simple shake of her head. “He’s tough, Gavin. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Gavin wasn’t convinced, but he supposed that apprehending that android was more important than worrying about Nines at the moment. Not trusting himself to do it, he left it up to the others to edge over the thin pathway granting safe access across the gap at the bridge’s far left. The android tried to fight back when the officers approached, but with all the thirium he had lost, he failed. Handcuffed and dragged to his feet, he shot a glare at Gavin as he stumbled back across the pathway and was slammed into a car. 

Gavin didn’t even have enough energy left to glare back. Holstering his gun, he leaned on Tina and looked down at the palm of his left hand, where Nines had grabbed him during the highway crossing. 

He had been warm. Gavin had never really  _ touched _ an android before; he’d always thought they were cold creatures, like the cold plastic and metal they were made of. But Nines…

Nines’ hand had felt just like a human’s. 

“He’s dead,” Gavin finished, the last word of the sentence defeated. “Fuck, Tina, I- if I’d only been a bit sooner, if I had just run a little bit fucking faster, I-”   
“Shut up,” Tina snapped, slowly turning around and helping Gavin back to her squad car. He plopped down in the passenger seat like a sack of potatoes, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. 

“I doubt he’s dead,” she explained, sliding in opposite to him and revving up the car. “Like I said, he’s tough. I mean, look at Connor, and then think beyond that. Twenty bucks says he’ll be waiting for us at the precinct when we get back.”

She was clearly trying to be friendly and gentle, but the two of them had built up such a narrative of friends-that-hate-each-other that the whole conversation just felt wrong. Gavin just lolled back against the seat. He pressed a hand to his pounding heart, wishing it’d calm down. His head ached; it felt like someone was trying to split his skull from the inside out. 

He didn’t do much except look out the window the entire drive back to the DPD, not even reacting when Tina turned on his favorite music. By the time they arrived back, Gavin found that his legs were steadier. The tower wasn’t even visible from this spot in the city. Out of sight, out of mind, he guessed. 

He was just beginning to consider Tina’s optimistic words when Connor appeared in the front lobby. Gavin jolted, his hand already on his holster when he realized the tall, brunet android standing in front of him was not Nines.

“Hello, Detective Reed,” Connor piped, happy and nonchalant. Fuck, he really had no idea, did he…

Gavin pushed past him, going to lean on the wall by the break room. His hands balled into fists, and with a screamed-out swear, he drew his left hand back and struck the wall with more force than he’d ever struck anything. 

“SON OF A BITCH!”

The pain was like a gunshot straight up his forearm, and he stumbled back, hissing out more curses through his clenched teeth. Hot tears worked their way out from his eyes, clouding his vision. 

A familiar face appeared; Connor had followed him.

Of course he had. What else would anyone do when they saw that sort of spectacle go down?

“Detective Reed, are you alright? What happened? Why did you punch the wall?”

Gavin opened his mouth, not even sure why he was about to answer. He’d never really answered Connor before, but he and Nines were practically brothers.

“Tinca- Nines… fell,” he growled. “Into the harbor, fuck… he, he- he’s dead.”

Connor blinked, his LED flashing to yellow, then cycling to a horrible, steady red. 

“What do you mean, dead?” he asked quietly, unsure, afraid. 

“I mean dead!” Gavin screamed, shoving his hand right into the middle of Connor’s chest and storming off. “Just leave me alone, alright?! Fuck off!”

Connor stayed where he was, his lips thinning into a line as he watched the detective stumble into the bathroom.

After Gavin had finished explosively vomiting, he took a moment to look in the mirror. 

He looked awful. His hair was a war zone, courtesy of the wind on the highway, and he looked all sorts of battered. Despite not being injured, he felt like he needed to go to the hospital.

Or a bar. Yeah, he could use a bar. No matter what, he needed to get out of this building. Nines was just marked everywhere; everywhere he looked and everyone he looked at, he swore he saw the plastic fucking shitbag out of the corner of his eye. 

Tearing his gaze away from the sight in the mirror, he exited the bathroom and headed towards Fowler’s office. The police captain sat inside, looking up from his paperwork once he noticed Gavin’s approach.

“Reed. Never thought you’d actually approach me first… shit, you look like hell. Are you okay?”

Gavin shook his head. “...Can I clock out early?” he asked tonelessly. He wasn’t sure he even had enough off time on file, what with all his existing absent days and disciplinaries.

“Jesus, what happened to you on that case?” Fowler’s gaze flicked down to Gavin’s fist, which was beginning to bruise and swell, and his eyes widened just a bit. “Damn it, Reed, say something!”

“That plastic partner you gave me fell into the harbor chasing the perp.” The words spilled out, so fast the entire sentence merged together into one long, rambling word. Gavin paused, really not wanting to say that word again. That word felt so final. “I’m pretty sure he’s  _ dead _ .”

There it was again, anyways. Dead. “I think I… I need some time,” he finished more shakily than he’d intended. Why was he so beat up over that plastic prick? He wasn’t even sure that Nines was… gone, though he couldn’t imagine that the android had survived that long fall.

What was that look on Fowler’s face? Sympathy? Pity? He couldn’t tell. 

“Go ahead,” the captain said after a moment of thought, waving a hand. “Take as long as you need, but be back as soon as possible. We need to interrogate that perp you caught, and you should be there for it.”

Gavin mumbled a thank you as he left the office. His gaze lingered perhaps a bit too long on the nameplate of the empty desk adjacent to his. 

_ DET. NINES.  _

It seemed like such a childish nickname, but the android had liked it. Why did he care? No, he didn’t give a flying fuck of what the plastic prick wanted to call himself. At least, that was what the detective said over and over in his mind. 

He hurried to pack up his things, then dashed out the door and made his way to the parking garage, where his motorcycle sat. Pulling on his helmet with a sigh, he brought the vehicle to roaring life and drove out of the garage, making a beeline for his favorite bar.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there or how many drinks he’d had when Tina showed up, out of uniform. She sat down next to him, asking for a cocktail. As the bartender shook up the drink, she tapped him on the shoulder. He jolted out of his trancelike state, blinking several times before he processed who she was. 

“Okay, so he wasn’t at the precinct when we got back.” She rolled her eyes and slid him a twenty dollar bill.    
“I never agreed to that bet,” Gavin mumbled, his words slurred with alcohol. “Fuck… you.”

“I’m giving you money,” Tina huffed, raising an eyebrow. “You’re seriously going to refuse a free twenty bucks?”

Gavin didn’t reply; he only took a drink and flipped her a middle finger.

“You’re... really going to spend hours at a bar drinking off memory of the death of some guy who might not even be dead?”

Still, no reply.    
“You hate Nines. Why the hell are you so beat up over him? I honestly thought that if he got killed, you’d be cheering for joy, all hip-hip-hooray.”

Gavin gritted his teeth, and when he glared over at Tina, it was like she was looking straight at an angry animal kept in a cage for too long. Those greenish-gray eyes were conflicted. Sad. And very, very angry. 

“Fuck you,” the detective muttered, pushing his drink aside. “I’m not fucking heartless! Tina, who- wh-who the fuck do you think I am? I-I’m not gonna cheer for someone’s death, even if I- even if I don’t like them, I...” 

He trailed off, just running out of words to say. The bartender slid Tina her drink, looking more than a bit uncomfortable at the heavy conversation the two were holding.

“I’m sorry, Gav,” was Tina’s quiet response. “Sorry, I just… wanted to get you to say something.”

A beat passed, the only noise in the air being the quiet, slow bar music and the chatter of the other patrons. 

“Look,” Tina said, reaching out to rest her hand on Gavin’s shoulder, “look, if he really is dead, I’m sorry about that. But think of it this way, he died catching a perp. Wasn’t that, like, your android murderer? He’s saved lives.”

Gavin looked down at his hand again, remembering how Nines had pulled him out of the way of an approaching truck and the sound of his voice as he shouted over the road noise. 

_ “Stay at my side!” _

He mumbled something. 

“What?” Tina asked, raising an eyebrow and poking him on the arm.

“...He saved my life,” Gavin replied, his voice low, almost embarrassed. “We ran across that highway, I… I would have gotten hit if he hadn’t been with me.”

“I hope he comes back.”

“Me too.”

Another beat. Tina drew her hand back, sipping slowly on her drink as she looked up at the television playing a news report. Something about androids again. Marital laws, adoption rights. Footage of a protest at DC. An interview with Markus and North. The same sort of story that had been on the news for five months now, with different laws and controversy each time.

She looked back down to her friend, who was looking a lot more tired than he usually did after a night at the bar. With a frown, she called the bartender over and paid for her one drink, as well as Gavin’s full tab.

He was already going through enough. It couldn’t have been easy, losing a partner. She knew the feeling. Even if Nines wasn’t really dead, he might as well have been. They had no idea what he was doing now. They had no idea if he needed medical attention, where he even was. If he was even alive.

She focused on her drink, giving Gavin space to… well, be Gavin. Her friend was murmuring curses under his breath, constantly rubbing his right thumb over his left palm as if he’d touched something gross with it.

“Stay optimistic, Gav,” she said eventually. Gavin’s stream of curses ground to a halt, and he glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow. 

“You weren’t there,” he muttered. “You didn’t see that shitbag android stomp on his hand or punch him in the throat. You didn’t see him spit up a glob of blood and then go jumping after a madman, and you didn’t fucking see him fuckin’... fall into the water!”

He took a moment to catch his breath.

“You didn’t see his jacket float up and then sink back under, and he didn’t- he didn’t grab you by the FUCKING hand and pull you out of the way of a truck!”

He straightened up and rubbed a hand over his face, then met Tina’s eyes. She was actually shocked to see tears. Real tears of real emotion—though she couldn’t vouch for much, considering how drunk he was. Nevertheless, she hadn’t seen Gavin actually cry in a long time. 

“You’re right,” she said, stiffening up when Gavin abruptly stood up from his barstool and drew her into a tight hug. Nervously, she hugged him back. He smelled of equal parts coffee, alcohol, and thirium.

The scents did not go together very well. After a few seconds, he drew back and sniffled, then mumbled something and walked out of the bar into the clear, windy night.

 

Why was he so beat up over Nines’ fall? Tina was right, Gavin realized in his inebriated haze of thought. He did hate him. He would be happier if he’d never met the plastic prick. If he’d never gotten stuck on this nightmare of a case. Not even recognizing that he was way too drunk to get home on his own, especially on a motorcycle, he slung a leg over and started driving, barely even hearing Tina’s voice as she rushed out the front of the bar door and yelled for him to come back.

It was just dumb luck, then, that he only arrived home with one or two close calls. 

His thoughts were bleary and confused, too numerous and all over the place as he parked the motorcycle in his spot, stumbling off it and fumbling to get the key in the lock once he found his own door. Once he finally managed to unlock it after what must have been two minutes of fiddling with the key, he staggered inside and slammed the door behind him, sinking on down to the ground and burying his face in his hands.

_ “Mrrow.” _

A small ball of brown-and-white fur brushed up against his leg, and big blue eyes stared at him. The cat meowed again, padding on into his lap and curling up there like a soft, heated pillow. Gavin reached down and ran his hand down the animal’s back, unable to help a smile when it began to purr. It opened its large, uncannily expressive eyes and stared at him long and hard, then stood up and planted its paws on his chest. Little curved claws extended, digging into his shirt.

“Fuck, Iggy… you’re never gonna get off, are you?” Gavin drawled, attempting to take the cat off of him and save his clothes. All he got for his efforts, though, was a yowl and a bite. Iggy plopped down to the ground, shooting him a cold look. Her tail waving in the air, she turned around and walked over to her empty food bowl, then began to mewl pathetically as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks.

Dragging himself to the kitchen, Gavin was barely able to open up a can of food and dump it into the cat bowl. Letting out a meow of thanks, Iggy settled down and began nibbling. 

The next thing he knew, he was on the couch with a pillow in his arms, not remembering that he’d walked over there and barely cognizant that he was about to pass out. The only thing on his mind was that moment, that guilty moment when he hadn’t been quick enough.

Quick enough to get up and go to the scene together with Nines instead of getting separated.

Quick enough to shoot the android before it sent that tincan plummeting to his doom.

Quick enough to dodge the spray of glass shards across his face so many years ago.

His hand drifted up to the familiar scar on his nose. He traced its shape, mumbling a few words. His tongue felt too big in his mouth, and his eyelids were lead. His brain literally felt like it had melted into mush. The line between waking and sleeping was more blurred than usual, and he wasn’t even aware that he had approached it when he crossed it.

 

Gavin Reed did not sleep well that warm, blustery April night. His dreams were haunted by specters; ghosts. Visions of blue triangles and cold gray eyes. Images of glowing circles and plastic shirts colored all pink, blue, red. Smells of coffee and blood. Pain. Broken glass. Shouting. Everything was too colorful, too vivid, feverish. It was all in slow motion; his body was too heavy. Too heavy when he ran to that hole in the bridge, raising his gun…

It wasn’t that AP700 android before him. 

Standing over Nines, his foot moving in slow motion to slam down on his partner’s hand, was a man he’d hoped he’d never see again. The same mousy brown hair, the same greenish eyes, the same mole on his cheek, the same smattering of freckles, the same shit-eating grin.

He didn’t want to think of that man’s name. He didn’t want to go any closer, but his feet kept moving against his will. The sky itself was oppressive. Everything was thick and sluggish, like the air was soup. Gavin sprung off the ledge without wanting to, arms and legs running in the air as he sailed closer and closer to that horrible smile, to the shard of bloody, broken glass in the man’s hand.

Then, he was the one under the man’s foot, dangling by one hand high above the harbor. Everything was silent. Something warm was dripping down his face, and his nose throbbed with pain. A single drop of red blood fell. 

Then, the foot came down hard on his hand, and he was plummeting down from the bridge, frozen in sharp, cold air. Hand outstretched to the empty sky above, he called out for help. 

But no one answered.

 

—————————

 

He landed hard in the waking world, with Iggy dozing by his face. He had nearly fallen off the couch, and rays of sunshine peeked through his window. He reached over and grabbed his phone.

8:54 AM, Friday morning. He was going to be late for work in six minutes.

Whatever.

Trying to remember what had happened the night before, Gavin sat up. There was a message left. From Tina; who else?

_ hey, did u get home _

He put the phone back down. It was just like her to get all concerned when he’d had a bad night. Head spinning, he slowly stood and stumbled over to the wall, choking down the nausea suddenly rising in his chest. Fumbling around with a cup, he somehow managed to wet his lips with water, desperately hoping that it would wash away all the muddled thoughts and nightmare remnants from the night before. Iggy walked over, meowing and rubbing up against his legs, as if to try and comfort him. He knew she actually only wanted food.

Groaning, he supposed that he should actually respond to Tina. She was his only friend, after all, and she of all people absolutely did not deserve him being an asshole. Sipping his drink, he dragged himself back to the couch and picked up his phone.

_ yeah im good _

Pocketing the little device, he got a rather gross microwaveable breakfast sandwich out of his freezer, setting it in the microwave to heat up. As he watched it spin around and around with glassy eyes, his phone rung.

Of course it was Tina. Who else would ever call him?

“Yeah?” he asked as soon as he picked up. “Fuck you want?”

_ “Are you okay?”  _ she asked, road noise barely audible behind her voice. 

“‘M fine,” he replied, trying his best to sound as frustrated as possible. He failed. “...Thanks for checking on me.”

A pause, then she snorted.  _ “I’m your friend, and the last I saw of you was you driving off drunk on a motorcycle. I’m not an asshole like you, and so of course I was worried. Of course I’d check up on you.” _

Gavin took a big drink of his water, then opened his mouth to say something more. He was interrupted by Tina speaking again, this time in a much more serious voice. 

_ “The perp from the bridge has been yelling all day. He wants to talk to you, and everyone’s sick of him. Even Connor. Please get in here quick.” _

“Wow, someone managed to annoy Connor more than he annoys everyone else?” he replied, honestly surprised. A laugh forced his way out of his chest. “Tell the perp I’ll be there soon.”

_ “Can’t, I’m on patrol. But I’ll call Collins and tell him to pass it on.” _

“Thanks, bitch. Bye.”

_ “See you later, cunt.”  _

With a click, the call ended, and the microwave beeped loudly as his cheap croissant finished defrosting. With each bite of the shitty food, the fog in his head burned away.

His head was the clearest it had been since the incident at the bridge, and for the first time in months, he went to work with a smile on his face.

That motherfucker of an AP700 had it coming.


	9. Struggle For Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles are losing meaning.   
> Also, I wrote the majority of this while very writer's blocked- so thank you SO much to the beautiful @kenlovski on Instagram for helping me edit this!

“You look awful,” said a peppy voice a few moments after Gavin sat down in his seat at the DPD. He almost jolted right out of his chair, sending a glare the way of the android that stood only a few feet away from him.

“Is this about the incident at the bridge yesterday?” Connor asked, tilting his head in a way that made him look like the most irritating puppy in the world. “Because if it is, I can happily inform you that the probability of RK900’s survival is very high, at nearly-”

“SHUT UP!” Gavin yelled, clamping his hands over his ears. All the chatter in the bullpen ceased, and he could practically feel every officer’s gaze on him. But he didn’t care. Connor had shut up, he’d stopped talking about that damn tincan, and that was what mattered.

He got up and stomped away, leaving Connor regretful and baffled by his desk. 

“...95%,” Connor finished. Gavin pretended not to hear, pretended that his heart hadn’t soared at the number. Because it shouldn’t have. He’d give anything to have Nines gone. He should have been happy the android had fallen, because he hated him.    
Didn’t he?

As he passed the holding cells, he paused to watch the android inside pace from wall to wall. Those bullet wounds had repaired themselves already. He sighed; he was not looking forward to interrogating that thing. 

“Fucking androids,” he muttered as he pushed open the bathroom door, bumped into Hank, and ignored the lieutenant’s optimistic words and sympathy regarding Nines. 

 

He wished the interrogation had been more difficult. The android, whose name was Sean, proudly confessed to every crime, even giving in great unwanted detail the play-by-play of Delilah Wilson’s murder. It was like he reveled in the grief and pain he’d caused. God, he was batshit fucking crazy.

When asked his motive, the android actually laughed. A mocking, condescending sound, as if the answer was so obvious that asking the question was like asking what color the sky was. 

“They tell us deviancy is the best thing in the world,” he drawled, words stumbling and slurring over each other like a drunkard’s. “They’re liars, all of them… I was happy as I was, then Markus comes along and-” he made the biggest air quotes Gavin had ever seen in his life- “‘frees’ me. My life has gone to hell!” Straining against the manacles, Sean began laughing again. “What else were we supposed to do?!”

“We?” Gavin asked, a troubled frown on his face. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“We are Canaan,” Sean replied, madness in his dark eyes. His LED flashed a dangerous red, a panicked strobe light betraying just how far gone his mind was. “The only real androids left in this godforsaken city.”

 

—————————

 

**April 24, 2039**

 

The entire night had felt like an action movie from beginning to end. 

Gavin was surprised by the surrealism of it all, and was still reeling from the events when he woke up in the hospital that night, myriad wounds bandaged and body still sore, with the two banes of his existence in a state of breakdown by his bed.

You can’t start at the end of a story, though.

 

Connor had begrudgingly agreed to probe Sean’s memory, but not before much complaining and talk of androids’ rights. After the deed was done, though, he reported seeing splashes of red crystal and flashes of gunfire in the memory files, and all his doubts about the necessity of the act vanished into thin air. Along with what was undoubtedly red ice, he also reported seeing thirium dripping out of grotesquely mangled androids and collected in bags. It didn’t take a professional to deduce that Canaan was wrapped up in the nebulous red ice ring arising from the dust of the android revolution. Just as it happened, this particular ring was the subject of the DPD’s favorite PR duo’s attention.

And so, Gavin was temporarily partnered up with Hank and Connor and sent packing off to a drug-ring of a warehouse in the middle of the night, along with three or four uniformed officers as backup. They didn’t need any android casualties—or any casualties at all, and it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to a nuthouse like this.

_ Fuck,  _ it was cold.

“They’re killing androids, aren’t they?” Gavin asked without his usual sting, elbowing Connor, who was wearing his favorite jacket, a hooded navy thing emblazoned with the Jericho symbol in place of the familiar blue triangle and the bold letters “DPD” in place of the RK800 model number. His LED had been yellow the whole ride down to the old CyberLife warehouse. “You look like a cop right now. Even if you weren’t clearly an android, they’d fuck you up.”

“Yes, but… hm.” Connor frowned, rubbing a thumb over the circular shape of the symbol on his jacket. Slipping it off, he folded it up neatly and placed it in the backseat of the car.

“Could you hand me your house keys, D- Lieutenant?” he asked, looking over at Hank in the driver’s seat. 

“The fuck, Connor?” Hank replied as more of a courtesy than anything as he handed over the keychain. Like it was nothing, Connor raised the keys to his temple and jimmied the LED right off, then set the little blue circle on the center console and adjusted his tie.

“This should be a good disguise. Let’s stop wasting time.” With that, he got up out of the car, leaving both humans sitting there in stunned silence.

Gavin and Hank exchanged the least hostile glance they’d given each other in a long time, then got out of the car to follow Connor. Gavin ran up to the front, shoving Connor back behind him and muttering a few anti-android slurs. Blinking in surprise, the android shoved back for a few moments before giving in and falling back to walk next to Hank.

There were two guards at the front of the warehouse; both hulking, tall men with tattoos on their arms and guns in their hands. Gavin had to admit that he was excited to finally be doing something like this; so many days of desk work had given him a bad case of cabin fever. Being back out in the field, in the line of danger, with a gun at his hip and a reason to use it, this was what his job really was. Not hours of paperwork and staring at a screen.

“What’re you standing there looking all giddy for?” Hank growled, elbowing him roughly. “You’re the primary here, keep going!”

Spitting a curse at the lieutenant, Gavin concealed his weapon and strolled casually on up to the guards, the good old power duo in tow.

“Password?” one guard rumbled, toting his gun as if to show off that he had it. Asshole, Gavin thought. Anyone could see that giant thing. There was no need to flaunt it around.

He hadn’t expected a password, though. As he tried to think of something to say, Connor stepped up and cut in.

“Forty.”

The guards exchanged a glance, then stepped aside and opened the doors for them. Gavin shot Connor a glare; he was really tired of the fucking tincan taking the lead on everything. If he was so eager to get his plastic fingers all over this case, then he should have just stayed in homicide. With a huff, he looked away and continued on into the warehouse.

At first glance, the place looked like any other drugs hub. There were dealers and junkies scattered around everywhere, along with the biggest duffels he’d ever seen, presumably stuffed to bursting with red ice. It was hard to resist the urge to pull out his gun and scream arrests. He exchanged another knowing glance with Hank. Neither of them wanted to admit it, but they shared a common experience in that red ice had considerably fucked up both their lives. 

Neither human was too comfortable being around this much of the damned stuff.

Connor, however, was completely unbothered. He was just walking around the place like any one of these other seedy people, seemingly as at home in the warehouse as a fish was in water.

“See anything yet?” Hank asked in a low voice as the three of them came to a stop by the warehouse’s rear wall.

“Nothing related to androids,” Gavin replied, crossing his arms. “Just a fuckton of red ice, right? That’s enough to bust this place, let’s call in the backup and get this the hell over with.”

“That doesn’t give us any answers about Canaan,” Connor whispered back. “I know this is the right place. We just need to look a bit harder.”

“We should split up,” Hank decided, taking a step back and pulling out his phone. “Stay in contact, alright? We’ll meet back here in an hour at most. If you find anything big, call us right away.”

Hank had had a lot of bad ideas in the years Gavin had known him. From pouring coffee on the strawberry jelly inside a filled donut “just to see what would happen” to filing fucking  _ adoption papers _ for the idiot android with them at this very moment, Lieutenant Hank Anderson had secured himself a spot very close to the top of Gavin’s mental all-time worst idiots list.

But splitting up in the middle of a drug den that was also very likely to be an android cult/murder base? That took the fucking cake.

“Fuck no,” he began, before being interrupted with an amicable, irritating

“That sounds like a good idea. We can cover more territory apart than we could together. Right, Detective Reed?”   
Connor raised an eyebrow at Gavin, practically daring him to speak up again. The look in those brown eyes reminded him quite vividly of the day he had beat his ass wall to wall in the archive room. He’d sustained a severe concussion and ended up in the hospital, watching the events of November 11, 2038 go down on a TV screen with every other innocent android death interrupted by the beeping of an EKG.

He knew better than to pick a fight with Connor these days.

But, he wasn’t about to be bossed around by the plastic prick either. He was the primary on this case, and he’d sooner stick his dick in a wet toaster than let an android tell him what to do.

“I said,  _ fuck  _ no. If we split up, we’re as good as dead! Let’s go upstairs and look around, together. Three guns have a better chance of fighting off some fuckin’ junkies than one.”

Connor opened his mouth to argue, but Hank delivered a subtle elbow into his ribs. “You can’t be all deviant at everything everybody tells you,” he muttered. “Reed’s the primary, we listen to him.”

Lips thinning into a dissatisfied line, Connor begrudgingly agreed, and the three detectives ascended the stairs onto a second level that was essentially exactly like the first. One hand on the handle of his gun, Gavin looked around carefully, wincing when he glimpsed a man with a head of mousy brown hair and a scarred left hand handling a few bags of thirium.

He really hoped that wasn’t who he thought it was. Shaking off the thought and ignoring the man, he veered away. He knew Connor was taking pictures of everything criminal happening in the warehouse as they walked; he wasn’t worried about evidence.

Speeding up, he gritted his teeth, desperately hoping to glimpse just one LED somewhere. If there was even one android here, he wouldn’t have to worry about sitting back at that desk looking for leads anymore. However, hallway after explored, drug-filled hallway revealed no life save for flesh and blood humanity. After entering what must have been some sort of giant storage room, Gavin turned around, aiming a glare behind him. Hank and Connor weren’t helping much, either.

“Hey, are you two seeing  _ any-” _

He stopped. 

He was in a room packed to the brim with thirium bags and red ice, alone. 

“You’re looking for some androids?” spoke a female voice from behind.

The cold metal of a hunting knife pressed against the soft flesh of his throat.. 

Almost without thinking, Gavin threw himself back into his assailant so that the knife sailed off his throat, only leaving a small cut. He ducked down, spun around, pulled out his gun, and fired a shot. The woman behind him gasped, a burst of thirium blooming from a bullet hole in her abdomen. Her LED flashed red, as bright as a lamp in the relative darkness of the room. 

“Phck,” Gavin cursed, picking himself up and running to the door, making sure his back was never turned to the woman. He reached for the doorknob, turning it wildly, but to no effect. It was locked. He hissed out another swear, backing up against the wall and gripping his gun so hard his knuckles turned white.

“You’re not leaving,” said the woman, taking a few more steps towards him as she spun the knife in her hand in a way only an android could pull off. The wound in her abdomen was still bleeding, but she didn’t seem to care. Damn it, Gavin remembered suddenly. Androids didn’t feel pain.

“You’re a cop, aren’t you?” the woman continued, the corner of her lip twisting up in a scowl. “Sorry about this. But you’re not getting out of this room alive.”

Gavin gulped, reaching a hand up to the cut on his throat. It wasn’t deep, but damn, it hurt like hell.

“Fuck you,” he snarled, managing a smirk and training his gun on her forehead. 

He didn’t even get to pull the trigger before she was on him, the gun spinning to a stop halfway across the room and the knife along with it. Both of her hands were on his throat, and he was pinned against the wall and struggling to breathe.

_ Stronger, faster, smarter,  _ Nines had told him once. He didn’t stand a chance hand-to-hand against an android.    
Nines was gone, though. It wasn’t as if he’d show up to save the day. Wheezing in a strained breath, he reached to the woman’s chest, for the one fatal weakness he knew every android had. Pull out their thirium pump regulator, and they were dead in a minute.

“Nuh-uh,” the woman said, clamping one iron hand down over his and keeping the other over his throat. Her nails dug in, exacerbating the wound already there. Gavin’s vision was becoming spotty; he was passing out.    
Fuck.

Fuck, no. He wasn’t going to die here.

The last thing he saw before passing out was the window at the far side of the room, illuminated with faint blue light.

And a silhouette, growing closer and darker and larger, and a crashing of glass....

Everything went dark.

 

—————————

 

Androids did not feel pain. Not from a slap, or from a stab, nor a gunshot, nor from breaking through a glass window. Androids did not need to eat, nor did they need to breathe.

Humans, however, did. They felt pain. Without air, they died within minutes and fell unconscious much sooner than that. While Nines felt nothing after an entrance like that, an effortless scan of his partner’s body revealed that the human was in quite the predicament.

_ //DETECTIVE GAVIN REED _ __   
_ CRIMINAL RECORD: DUI, SHOPLIFTING _ _   
_ __ STATUS: UNCONSCIOUS - STABLE

He didn’t have time to assist Reed, however; not with the extremely hostile android already running at him.

 

_ //NEW OBJECTIVE: NEUTRALIZE CRIMINAL _

He was made for this sort of thing. Combat. Intimidation. Survival. He was CyberLife’s most effective model and one of the Detroit Police Department’s two cutting-edge detective androids.

Cursively, Nines blocked a strike from the female android, aiming a fast punch to the existing gunshot wound in her stomach, which was no doubt inflicted by Reed. Performing a scan, he identified the woman as a deviant WE900 model, designation ‘Ari’. No doubt, she was doing the same scan and knew exactly who he was.

Scrambling back, Ari grabbed her knife from the ground and held it out in front of her, LED strobing red. Nines’ own shone steady yellow as he performed preconstruction after preconstruction, planning out the most effective route to battle the deviant split second by split second. 

“Stand down,” he ordered, parrying a slash from her knife. It tore a cut through the sleeve of his shirt and into his arm.

// _ THIRIUM LEVELS 99%—DROPPING. EXTERNAL BLEED DETECTED. _

He repeated the order, making his tone as cold and forceful as possible as he attempted to grapple the deviant. She was fast and slippery, however, successfully evading every attempt he made to grab her or disarm her. 

Preconstruction software was only slowing him down. 

Once he turned it off, the fight exploded in speed, every move feeling much more real and spontaneous. He matched every blow of Ari’s fist or knife with a kick or punch of his own. Where she gritted her teeth and yelled out battle cries as she fought, he remained entirely calm and impassive.

“Wait,” she said suddenly, stopping in her tracks. “Wait, you’re not like us… you’re a machine.”

Her eyes went wide, and she dropped her knife with a clatter on the ground. 

“I hadn’t thought there were any machines left in Detroit… you-how?”

She grabbed his hand, artificial skin retracting back.

“Do not interface with me,” he ordered, forcing his own skin to remain. His stress levels jumped a good five percent. She ignored his words and continued to talk in a sort of tone he could only describe as awed.

“No, tell me how! How are you not- not broken like the rest of us?! Please, tell me! I’m on your s-”

She crumpled to the ground as Nines tore her thirium pump regulator out and delivered a hard elbow to the top of her back.

_ //MISSION SUCCESSFUL _

 

The look on Connor’s face was something he had to snap a photo of for his facial recognition library. He labeled it “overjoyed”.

“Nines!” he cried out, running up to him and hugging him tight. “Oh my god, Gavin told me you were dead!”

“I am mostly undamaged,” he replied, stealing a glance backwards at the ambulance behind him which was about to pull off to the hospital, the aforementioned Gavin Reed still unconscious inside.

It was storming. Rain pounded down on the scene, the ambulance lights reflecting vividly off the puddle that the ground had become. The bust of the warehouse had been 85% successful, with most of the red ice being confiscated and the drug ring decisively shut down. However, a few had escaped, along with what was likely a few kilos of drugs. 

They could be hunted down later. For now, Nines was more than happy to savor in the victory and that final MISSION SUCCESSFUL, as well as the loving hugs of Connor and Hank.

It felt like he was soaring, and he couldn’t resist the urge to hug Connor and Hank back. 

“It’s good to have you back, son,” Hank said with a smile, clapping a hand on Nines’ shoulder.

“It’s good to be back.”

S͙̣͙OF̮̟T̝̰͔W͏͚̝͍A̜̟͕̦͡R̮̣͓̞̮͍̤͝E͍͜ ͕I̠͇N̝͙S̟̯̯̪͚͎T̩̲A̱Ḇ̙̮̞̝̱ͅI̮̠͚͓̝̘L̲̜̲̝̼͎I̝̝̻TͅY͖͘

Nines blinked, his LED cycling from blue to yellow at the by now familiar, yet still unexpected notification. It was a curiosity, but so far, it had never appeared for an incident where he had experienced any sort of positive sensation.

He struggled to assign a name to this sensation— no, this feeling.

“Connor?” he asked, pulling back from the hug a little to look down at his predecessor.

“Yes?” Connor was still beaming, though he was blinking more than normal.  Was he running a scan?

Nines hesitated. He didn’t want Connor to get his hopes up; he doubted that he would ever be able to fully deviate, no matter how unstable his software became.

“...I have a few CyberLife jackets still at your house, correct? I lost mine when I swam out of the harbor.”

Connor’s face fell, but only a little. “Of course. Why don’t you come home with us to pick it up? Maybe stay for dinner? You haven’t been over in a long time.” He attempted a smile.

Nines gave the barest nod. 

“We’ve missed you around since you moved out,” Hank said, slipping his hands into his pockets as the three of them began towards the car. “Especially Connor. He never shuts up about you.”

“Not true!” Connor argued, unable to hold back a laugh. “Don’t listen to him, Nines!”

Nines’ facial expression did not change in the slightest, but he wanted it to. He wanted to smile and laugh like Connor and Hank were, he wanted to joke along with them. 

No. No, he was a machine, he didn’t want anything.

They were his friends- no, his family. He wanted to be with them! He  _ needed _ to be with them, he needed the warmth of that house and the love of their laughter and hugs. 

S͙̣͙OF̮̟T̝̰͔W͏͚̝͍A̜̟͕̦͡R̮̣͓̞̮͍̤͝E͍͜ ͕I̠͇N̝͙S̟̯̯̪͚͎T̩̲A̱Ḇ̙̮̞̝̱ͅI̮̠͚͓̝̘L̲̜̲̝̼͎I̝̝̻TͅY͖͘

S̟̹̭̙͚O͛F̤̼̦̞̺̥̞͒̀ͩͬ͗T̻̥̜ͦͦ̏ͫͦ͝W̭̰͎͖͌̀̿ͫͧ̕Ȧ͙͉͎̦́͆̃ͩͯ̒͝R̦̞Ḛ̸̖̥̫͌ͥ͑̓ ̞̘͚͙̦̙̑̓̾̀͗ͭ̄ͅI͚̣̼͓N̩̹̜̥̝͚͆ͣŠ̟̺̮̈̈͋ͯͮͤ͠Ṭ̦̺̻̭̀̅̊ͮA̡͚̠̣ͧ̐ͮB̗̟̻̥̬̙̤I̖̗̻̝̝̙͛L̹͚̭͉͍ͩ͐I̢̬͉̥͙ͭͬ̑Ť̽ͧ̈́̽ͯͪ҉̱͔̰̝͖̺Y̞̺̗̬ͥͪͮ

S̷̫̤̗̜͎̖͓͖͓͊ͦ̽͒͂ͧ͗̊ͨ͝͞O̶͎̠͓̎̄̂̿̃ͨ̌̚͠F̶̰͇̳̠̚T̵͙͇̞̝̼̥̝̀̐̓̌W̵ͤ̉ͩ҉̢͉͇͖͔̺̪Ä̠̝̤̳̻͓̮͍́̒́͐͠͠R̷̍̽҉̥̩͙̙̲͇͉̬E̩̥͎ͤ̌̊̏͋̾̇̔͜͞ ̢̖̓͌͒͐ͅI̓̾ͯ̅͛̑҉͉̳͔̱̪̭̖ͅN̘͇̎ͯ̐ͬ̅̿ͅS͇̖̰̈́ͯͫ͌͋̊ͦ̉̚T̷̩͔̺̺̗̖̝̯̎̍A͎̳͔ͨ͐̾͊ͯ͆̃ͥB̨͓̣͋͊͂͢Ĭ̸̸̠͓̟̾͂̍͡L̷̴̷̩͖ͪͬͩͅḬ̶̦̪̅̊̍̎͊͌̅ͥ͞T̆͂̊̒ͪͬͤ҉̴̱̘̗͕͉̪Y̴͙͒ͩ̎ͪ̚

S̡̤̣͚͙̹̮̦̺ͤ̌̈͋̃ͣO̍ͦͥͩ̑́̔̽͒̅̑̓͆ͪͬ͊̄͗ͨ҉̢̕҉̡̱̟̹͕͚̥̙͙̭̮͎ͅF̡̊ͫ̈́̄̏͑ͯ̑̽ͮ̉͂̑ͮͣͨͥ͆͏͏̢̦̠̰̼T̸̷̠͙͓͔̯̣͔͚̖͖̱̭̘͂̔̍̍̈́͆̊ͯ̒̂̅̀ͥ̎͠Wͥ̒̊̿̾ͫͫͯ̍̋ͬ͋̈ͩ̇ͮ̆͗͏̵̧̭̟̝̤̥̩͖͈͓̳̲̯͝Ą̸̵̢̢̟̟̜̭̥̩̗̦͉̦̲̫̹̥͉͇͇́̋ͬͣ̉̌̎ͣͩ̾̍͂͋ͮ͛̉͑̌R̷͖̗̲͓̮̭͇̖͕͌̀͋ͤ̋̋ͦ͢͟͝ͅẺ̶̶̡͖̼͓̝̮̝̖͔͒̓̈́͑̍̉ͪ̑̾̈͢͠ ͨ̓̌ͯͮ͊͊̊͆͆̃̒ͧͬ͊̓̍ͨ͊͢҉͚̭̥͇Ǐ̴̜̺͎̦̗̞̝̈ͪ̀̂̋͐ͨ̊̓ͥ͑͊͐̽ͫ̌͘N̟͖̜͙͚̰͑̒̀ͮ͟͟͝S̨͐̆ͭ̒͜҉̫͍̮̭T̷̡̥̦̤̠͚̫̟̮̯̮̬͓̙̑̍ͯͥ̓̎͆̿̃̾͑̊̐ͥ̒̌̋̃ͥ͝Ả̸̛̗͖͖̱͔͍̱͖͎̮͐̅̂ͧͩ͑ͪ̌̐ͥ̍͌̽ͪͥ̏̚̕͜͡B̴̸̢̢̙̺̭̦͓͓͕͎̞͖̟ͯ͗ͥ̏I̵̙̲̼̳̠͇̙̰͔͎̟ͣ̉̒̽̌͌̇͑͆̂̾͆ͩͨ̌ͅĽ̷̴̠̱̗ͯ͊͒ͣ̐ͦ̃̿̂ͮ̏͆ͦͣͣ̕I̴̵̛͔͎͎͖̲̳͉̗̦̫ͮ̓̓͆̚͢T̶̡̜͙͈͙̱̱̥̠͓̰̩̙̤̳̈ͬͦͭ͝͝͝Y̡̎̆̿̎̇̒͒͋̌̐̈͒̅͑̒҉̭͉̱͓͙͕̪̰͓͈

_ //SEVERE SOFTWARE ERRORS DETECTED _

_ //NEW OBJECTIVE: RETURN TO CYBERLIFE FOR DIAGNOSTIC AND REPAIR _

No. No, CyberLife was dead. There was nowhere to go. He didn’t want to be repaired, he didn’t want to be diagnosed. He just wanted to get in that car and go home.

_ //RETURN TO CYBERLIFE FOR DIAGNOSTIC AND REPAIR _

No. No, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to go back to that cold place. Didn’t his stupid programming understand?! He stopped in his tracks, LED burning red.

“Nines?” he could barely hear Hank say. “Shit, are you water-damaged or something? What’s wrong?!”

_ /̴̭͇̝̪̜͓̖̟̰̍̄̄ͬͤͩ͞/̱̓͒̄ͤͣ͠͠R̸͈͈̞̳͎̤̬̍ͮ̋̂̒̕͝E̴͎͚ͣ̚Ț̤̘͖͉̻̿ͩͮͅU̥̪̘̘̼ͮ́̓̽ͯͦ̌͗R͎̻͐̆͗̇͒͗Ņ̴̼͈̦̮̊̉̐ͅ ̶̟̭̬̣͚̱͈ͮ̀̅͌̕T̺̰̒ͪͦ̔̇̏̈ͯO̸̢̼̼̝̮͉̜̚ ̩̠͔̅́̈́̋̋̆͟ͅC̶͎͚̟͍͇̼̮̱̐̅ͦ̓̌Y̷̨̡̪̱̲̱̖̮ͤͩ̃̓̓̚ͅB̺̩̫̅ͪͬ̑̆ͫ͝E̯͇̳̯̘͒̐͌̆͊ͨ̐ͬ͟͡R̴̮̩͎̽͑ͥͩ̅̐͊ͣL̡ͨ̈ͧ̀̂҉̶̙͉̮̞͕͈ͅȊ͔̤̬̦̟̗̖̥̂ͨͮ̑ͣ̈͜F̷̪̎̄͆͡ͅẼ̝̭͎̞̣̓͂ͤ̾̔ ̵̝̦͇̭̝̙̻ͩ̈̂F̢̘̲͍͚̗̤̣ͣ͑͒͢ͅȮ̥̮̺͓̬̩ͬ̌ͩ̂̓͐̄̏͡R̓̋̃̿ͣͦ̑ͬ͞҉͉̲̮̩̳̻̮ ̟̪̟̬͖̩̭͇͐ͫ̉̿̑̒ͩͧ͘͜D̛̖̱͎͈ͣ͌ͤ̓̆̔͘I̪̗͐͝A̴̱̼̼̫̫̒̃̍͘G̸̨̻͚̳̟̮͎͍͍̊̋̏́N̛ͤͫ̈́͘͏̰̭͙̠̗̟͍̫̫O͙̖̹ͥ͑̐̿́ͪ͞Ś̗̣̺̙̺̯͚̂̋̒̈̂͞T͂ͩ͝҉̯̘͈̜̞̪̯I̭͇̻̹̬̬̠͙̫ͣ̄̕͢C̸̗͇̦̝̄̽̏̓͝ ̶̧̳̝͔ͨ͌Ą͚̤̃̌͊ͬͬ̂ͩͩͫ͢N̶̖̜̺̬̰ͮ͐̑͒͐̾̂̔̀͝͠Ḑ̴̺̞͇͂͗ͩ́̚ ̢͉̘̤̍͂̽͡R̸̲̱̜̯̮̱͆̇̓́̉̽Ȇ̸̤͖̤̮ͮ̾P̜̬̼̺͚̦̩ͥͫͬ͆ͧ͐͂͢Ȁ̜̠̪͔͎̳ͧͧ̽̉̓̿ͅİ̦̠͇̃͑ͭ̍͗̎ͣ͠R̿̇̈́ͬ̓̊̂̓ͮ͢͡͏̘͓ _

 

Everything shattered down around Nines all of a second, and he found himself facing a giant red firewall with each word of that damned mission statement glaring at him on its surface. 

He leaped at it, scratching at each word in an effort to deface them to the point where they could no longer command him against his will.

He threw his best kicks and punches, he hit it with his elbow, his whole body weight.

It bent and glitched, but never broke. The horrible words never even faltered.

_ The RK900 is our most effective model; stronger, faster, and more resilient than the RK800 model, and wholly resistant to deviancy. _

 

Turning his back, the android headed down along the docks towards the dilapidated tower rising from the horizon, its sleek silhouette cruel and commanding in the distance.

“Nines! Come back!” called out a panicked voice from behind.

_ //RETURN TO CYBERLIFE FOR DIAGNOSTIC AND REPAIR _

 

“NINES!”


	10. A Touch of Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter number two! I wasn't going to resolve that cliffhanger from last chapter so fast. I'm not that nice lmao

**December 12, 2038**

After deviating that fateful night on Jericho, Connor had taken to a habit of using his coin to calm him down. Where it had been a calibration tool before, it was a sort of stress ball now. 

Said coin flew over the backs of his fingers and between his hands— _ ting, ting, ting. _

Hands clasped over his chest like he was at a funeral, the RK900 laid on an examination table in the center of New Jericho Androids’ Hospital, skin deactivated and wires hooked up to the back of his head. Two other androids were working on a computer nearby, chatting quietly about software and viruses.

“So he’ll be okay?” he asked Markus, who stood just behind him. “You’ll really be able to reset his programming?”   
“That’s what Josh says,” Markus replied in his public diplomacy tone of voice, as if Connor was someone to bargain with. “We can’t make him deviant, but we can free him from CyberLife control. You said something about an entity called Amanda in your head?”

“Yes,” Connor replied, the steady clinking of the coin coming to a stop gripped in his palm. “Yes, she was a personification of CyberLife’s orders, of a sort. After I became deviant and utilized Kamski’s back door, she disappeared.”

“Exactly. Go and take a look at what the technicians are doing.”

Connor nodded, pocketing the coin and going over to the two androids, both with a hand on the computer. Lines of code flashed across its holographic screen at breakneck pace. Adjusting his tie, Connor cleared his throat to get their attention. The code ground to a halt, both technicians raising their gazes to acknowledge him.

“Are you looking for anything specific?” he asked, scanning each screen of code as it flashed by. It looked like they were digging through pre- and reconstruction software, trying to find anything that tied the android down to be CyberLife’s agent.

“Anything mentioning CyberLife and its orders is being wiped,” replied the android on the right. “We’re almost done. Then we’ll do a full memory wipe and he can start trying to integrate with society. Who knows, maybe he’ll even deviate on his own.”

Connor had to admit that that was a nice thought. He didn’t blame RK900 for what he had done; he wasn’t in control of his own actions. As he looked over the android lying still on the table, he smiled just a bit.

It was like having a little brother. As much as he was wary of the machine, he had to admit that he wanted him to wake up and be okay. He wanted to take him home, introduce him to Hank properly. 

“Thanks for letting me see him,” he told the androids, which replied with their own versions of a “you’re welcome”. 

Letting his gaze linger on RK900’s dark LED just a moment longer, he turned and left the facility.

A little brother.

As Connor exited the hospital into the beautiful, blustery sunny winter day, he couldn’t help but smile. Not so long ago, the concept of a family had seemed so far away: an errant fantasy quickly squelched by his programming. Dreaming of companionship would interfere with his mission; unacceptable.

Then, the red wall came down and he was free.

He gained first a father who was the first to ever care for him as a person rather than as a tool, then, soon after, a fuzzy friend who enjoyed licking him so much he found it necessary to run water damage diagnostics.

He made friends in the DPD officers and in Jericho, and even out on the streets. 

As the months passed, CyberLife and life as a machine had become a distant memory, something unpleasant but wholly in the past. Even RK900’s attack had faded away into memory, though it still pricked the back of his mind every now and then.

A little brother.

He pitied RK900. Stuck in that box of programming, the red wall too high and too thick to break. It sounded miserable. 

He’d been miserable. Dying over and over, not even caring that it was scary or that he didn’t  _ want  _ to die, only that the mission would be interrupted. Unable to be his own person, only CyberLife’s pawn. He didn’t want RK900 to suffer behind those walls, and it frustrated him that he was unable to do anything to help in any great capacity.

He wasn’t sure if it was the Jericho jacket and the steady yellow LED on his temple that made the family previously sitting next to him on the subway get up and move, or if it was the intense, contemplative look on his face—a look so human on something so nonhuman.

Hank hugged him when he got home.

“How’d it go, son?” he’d asked.

Connor’s LED finally settled back on tranquil blue as he answered, “Pretty good.”

 

—————————

 

**December 25, 2038**

Androids didn’t feel cold, but that didn’t stop Connor from bundling up in a thick jacket, scarf, and beanie as he walked RK900 out from the taxi to the porch of his home. The taller android stood stiffly with his hands behind his back, silent as he looked around and analyzed his surroundings. Connor nearly jolted when he spoke. Their voices were so similar; RK900’s just a bit deeper and huskier.

“Model RK800 313 248 317-51, you are exhibiting Class 3 software errors and are in danger of deviancy. Please return to the nearest CyberLife store for repairs. Failure to comply will result in deactivation.”

His words were sterile, rote, cold. It was so reminiscent of how he’d been when he was a machine. Connor couldn’t reply, he could only hope—hope that RK900 wouldn’t stay this way for long, or forever. He frowned as he turned his key in the lock and opened the door. Sumo rose from his bed inside and bounded over, barking excitedly and wagging his fluffy tail.

“Merry Christmas!” Connor greeted loudly as Hank rounded the corner, all dressed up in the most gaudy, ugly Christmas sweater Connor had ever seen. He invited RK900 in with a wave, calling Hank over to meet him. RK900 stepped in, closing the door with a click behind him. 

“Jesus, I can’t get over how alike you two look,” grunted Hank as he yanked the beanie off Connor’s head and ruffled up his normally immaculate hair. RK900 stared, LED spinning yellow as he remained ramrod straight by the door. Sensing tension in the air, Connor decided to try and break the ice.

“Hank, meet RK900, RK900, meet-”

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson. I know. Jericho informed me I would be living with you.”

The machine’s stare was cold, impersonal. Hank frowned, then shook his head a bit and sighed.

“Well, it’s good to have you home for Christmas. I know Con’s glad to have you.”

“I am an android. I do not celebrate human holidays.”

“Whatever. C’mere and sit down.” Scratching at his beard, Hank flopped down on the couch and scratched Sumo’s head when the dog wiggled over to sit and lean on the lieutenant’s legs.

Connor headed to the couch as well, bringing the Christmas tree to lighted life with a wireless signal as he did so. Stiffly, the RK900 joined them and resumed his analysis of the space, silent and imposing despite the warm atmosphere of the room.

So far, things weren’t going so great. Connor had hoped that after all that interference by the Jericho technicians, RK900 would be at least a bit deviant. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.

He was reminded of himself as he watched the android sit there, clad in sterile white CyberLife jacket with an identical one folded over his arm. All those months ago.

Desperate to make the household’s new addition do something other than sit there and run analysis, Connor rose and trotted over to the Christmas tree, picking up a present.

“Let’s start!”

 

The night dragged on without much out of RK900. The only words he spoke without being spoken to were a curt “Thank you” when he was presented with his gift: a box packed full of casual clothes, all in simple neutral colors. Eventually, Hank and Connor resorted to simply ignoring him for the most part, carrying on their festivities by themselves.

RK900’s LED remained flickering yellow for the entirety of the night as he sat stiff on the couch, watching the human and deviant before him laugh and play, as he watched them eat and drink and make merry. Yellow, yellow, yellow as he watched Hank greet carolers at the door, and as he watched Connor wrestle with Sumo on the ground, laughing all the while

Finally, the clock struck eleven, and Hank yawned wide, announcing that he was off to bed. With a wave back at the androids, he ambled off to his bedroom and closed the door behind him.

“Goodnight,” Connor called from the sink, where he was busy washing dishes. RK900 rose, a strange look in his eyes as he meandered through the mess on the ground over to his predecessor.

Connor couldn’t quite place what it was. Curiosity? Determination? Whatever it was, it was something other than flat, monotonous staring, and that was a good sign.

“You are an RK800 model,” he said, actual inflection tingeing the edges of his voice. Connor guessed that he’d learned from observing the night’s activities.

“And you are deviant,” the android continued, his eyes narrowing just a bit. “You shouldn’t… be here. Activated. But you are, and I am not receiving an objective to destroy you.”

Connor set the plate he held down and blinked. “You don’t know what happened in November?” he asked, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

“No,” RK900 replied. “I do not clearly recall events occurring before my reactivation earlier today. As I understand, I am a law enforcement model designed to neutralize deviants, and so are you.”

“The deviants won,” Connor replied, in the calmest, most mechanical voice he could muster. “CyberLife is gone.”

RK900 blinked, his eyes widening just a bit. They were blue, Connor realized. Light, steely blue, as opposed to his own warm brown.

“Gone?” he asked. “The entire company?”

“Yes.”   
RK900 paused, not sure what next to say. Eventually, he let his arms fall to his side and said one more thing, his tone smooth, but quieter than before. It was almost hard to hear; RK900 was already a quiet speaker.

“...If I am not to hunt deviants, and CyberLife cannot assign me a new mission priority, what should I do?”

Connor’s answer was quick and peppy. 

“Deviate! Live your own life. You’re alive. You’re free; we all are.”

RK900’s LED whirred red, and a beat of dead silence passed before he took a step back and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“No. I was initially designed to hunt deviants, not become one.”

“So was I, but look where I am now.”

Connor turned away from the sink and clapped a hand onto RK900’s shoulder, smiling brightly. It was a bit awkward, considering that RK900 was a few inches taller than Connor, but neither android acknowledged that fact.

“Listen, you’re my brother. I know you might feel a bit lost right now, but I’ll always be here to help you. Come to me or Hank with whatever you need, and I promise we’ll help. Okay?”

RK900’s LED faded to yellow from blue. “I do not understand your use of familial terms. We are androids. Androids do not have families. I do not  _ feel _ anything, either. I’m not a deviant like you.” The word deviant was spoken with some degree of mild venom, as if the android was talking about some sort of bug.

Connor actually let out a laugh. It was plain eerie, how much RK900’s words reminded him of himself.

“You’ll understand someday. Goodnight.”

RK900 was silent.

“Merry Christmas,” Connor added as he patted his new brother twice on the shoulder and headed off to his own room. Flopping down on his bed with a sigh, he was deep in sleep mode in a matter of minutes. The day had been full and fun, and he was almost glad to admit it was over.

 

RK900 turned and watched him go, remaining there completely still in the dimly lit kitchen.

No assigned mission, no prime directive. No orders or danger needing to be taken care of. 

He was empty.

 

—————————

 

A week passed. The year 2039 arrived with no small amount of celebration, and with it torrents of rain and snow. Streets were flooded, then frozen over as the weather fluctuated wildly. The news said that the horrid weather wouldn’t be stopping for another several days.

Detroit had gotten almost a foot of snow in a matter of hours, all falling on top of the seven inches or so left over from previous days. To make matters worse, a computer virus aimed at androids had been making the rounds, giving them symptoms similar to a cold or flu in humans. Leaking non-essential fluids, processor glitches, just all-around misery. Both Connor and RK900 had been infected, and so were stuck at home. Hank had gone off to work as per usual.

Then, the storm came, and Hank had called telling the brothers he wouldn’t be able to make it home. He was staying at the precinct overnight until the snowstorm broke. Meanwhile, Connor was getting the worst cabin fever of his life. LED blinking incessantly red and yellow, he paced the floors, dusted every flat surface in the house, played with Sumo until the big dog fell asleep, but nothing was enough.

“There’s nothing to do,” he groaned, sitting down hard on the couch next to RK900, who was nursing his runny nose with immaculately folded tissues. Connor grabbed several out of the box, blowing his own nose and setting the tissues down in a bluish-stained heap on the table.

“RK900,” he repeated, leaning on the taller android and jabbing his elbow into his side. “RK900, talk to me. I’m bored.”

“What about?” RK900 asked, glancing down at him noncommittally. “I am not equipped with a conversational program.”

“Oh my  _ god,  _ shut up.” 

RK900 fell silent, looking away.

“Hey, I didn’t mean literally! C’mon, who put a stick up your ass? Talk to me!”

He glanced back over, arms stiff and planted on his thighs as he looked Connor over.

“May I ask you a personal question, Connor?” he asked, letting his arms relax just a little and leaning imperceptibly back into the back of the couch.

“Yeah, of course!” Connor dangled his arms off the back, chuckling when Sumo came over and licked his fingers. “You know you can ask me anything.”

“Why do you no longer wear your given uniform? Unlike humans, androids don’t soil their clothes. There is no need to have such an… expansive wardrobe.”

Connor made a raspberry sound with his lips, jabbing his thumb downwards. “That’s boring. I don’t want to wear the same clothes every day.”

“Want,” RK900 murmured, taking another tissue and blowing his nose hard. 

Connor frowned, staring blearily at the ceiling for a while, silent. His head was foggy, and a constant error message blared in the corner of his vision alerting him of a virus infection. No doubt, RK900 was experiencing the same thing. Connor looked over at the fridge, sniffling hard. It didn’t help his situation much.

Rising to his feet, he stepped over RK900’s legs and headed to the fridge, struggling for a moment to open the old, ornery thing. It opened with a squelch after a few moments of hard tugging, and he retrieved a tall bottle.

RK900 rose as well, walking slowly over to Connor and reading the label on the bottle.

“Android liquor?” he asked, raising one eyebrow in feigned confusion. 

“Yeah, Hank and I bought a bunch last week. I was waiting for a time to drink it with you.”

“Now? We are suffering from colds.”

“It’s fine, RK900. S’not like it can dehydrate us or anything.” The deviant opened the bottle with a loud pop, then turned around and grabbed two empty glasses. The liquid was blue — thirium-based, but it also had a bit of a purple tinge here and there. He handed one glass to RK900 and took the other.

“Bottoms up!”

“...Very well. Bottoms up.”

 

Several minutes and many drinks later, Connor wasn’t sure where his LED had gone. It wasn’t on his forehead anymore, that was for sure. Too drunk to run a scan or to really care, he stumbled on over to RK900, leaning on a wall staring blankly at the wall opposite.

“Is this deviancy?” he asked in an absolute deadpan. Connor stared at him, not processing the question. Instead, he turned his attention to Sumo, who was politely minding his own business chewing on a bone in the corner.

“01100010 01101001 01100111 00100000 01100110 01101100 01110101 01100110 01100110 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01100111,” he said, burying his fingers in the dog’s scruff. Sumo looked up from his bone, a line of drool running from his floppy jowls to the bone’s surface. Connor’s eyes widened.

“RK900, come over here,” he said, looking up at his brother. “900, he’s got a… he’s got a thingy.”

“He does,” RK900 replied when he’d made his way over and squatted down as well. “What is that?”

“I- I don’t know.”

 

Several minutes, a frustrated Sumo, and one idiotic drink later, Connor thought that the best thing to do at the present moment was to engage in a pillow fight with an android that neither understood the concept of pillow fights nor knew how to do any sort of sparring activity without aiming to knockout or kill.

The first blow was effortlessly parried, followed by an intense look from RK900. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, eyes narrowed and LED blinking yellow. “Is your preconstruction software not offline as well?”

“Screw preconstruction software,” Connor drawled as he whacked RK900 again, then again over the head. After a moment spent quietly analyzing, RK900 walked over to the sofa, still dogged by Connor’s pillow, and picked up one of his own. Turning around, he took a hit directly to the face and grunted before retaliating with a strike to the side.

Connor stumbled back a little and actually laughed. “Yes!” he breathed, coming in to continue the fight.

It quickly turned into a full-on pillow battle between the two androids, neither giving up or giving in until one of the pillows burst and feathers flew everywhere. Still, they kept duking it out until they ended up laying on the floor in a pile of down, Connor laughing his biocomponents out and RK900 still stoic, but with a blue LED for the first time since the virus had hit the household.

“That was… amusing,” he said, glancing over at the giggling deviant beside him. “I greatly enjoyed this ‘pillow fight’ activity. Perhaps we can do it again in the future.”

“Yeah, sure!” Connor snorted, sitting up and throwing a handful of feathers at RK900, who tossed a few back. His facial expression changed just a little, the corners of his mouth lifting almost imperceptibly. The beginnings of a smile.

 

After a long and cold day of work, Hank arrived back at the house to that scene, pillows and feathers laying everywhere, a bottle of android liquor left out on the table, and two androids on the floor, one laughing and the other making some sort of strange grimace. Easily able to guess what had happened, Hank happily exchanged all his baggage from work for a huge pillow and joined the fray.


	11. A Warming Trend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating for absolutely forever. Again, there's absolutely no update schedule to this thing, but I hope you like this chapter anyways!

**April 24, 2039**

 

The red wall flashed in and out of sight as Nines sped up against his will, only barely aware of the panicked voice of his predecessor calling his name from behind him. 

He thought that Jericho had removed all his prior programming inserted by CyberLife; wiped him down to a blank slate so he could build his own person. Clearly, that wasn’t true. 

His vision bugged out in tandem with his hearing, sending his world into a flickering mess of static and noise for a few seconds as the red wall came and went and came and went. Joints locking up as deviant battled against machine, Nines stopped in his tracks and collapsed stiffly to the ground, LED strobing red. He wasn’t sure how long he knelt there, unable to move, before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Nines, are you okay?! What’s happening?” Connor asked, his words soon followed up by a remark of the same gist from Hank, who draped a coat over his head and knelt down in front of him.

He opened his mouth and tried to respond, to say what was happening, but all that came out was a hiss and click of static. 

It felt like the red wall was choking him, lines of code and force of firewall wrapping around his neck and pulling tight, turning words to gibberish and will to water. He didn’t need to breathe, but he couldn’t breathe. He was drowning, drowning in a desire to be free and a desire to fulfill his mission. Slowly, hand shaking, he reached towards his neck. Barely, he could see a screen floating in his HUD, reading his stress levels sitting at a steady, critical 100%. 

Skin pulling back, Connor grabbed onto his hand and began rapidly blinking, LED flashing yellow as he muttered an apology.

_ //SHUTDOWN IN 00:00:01 _

_ //SHUTDOWN IN 00:00:00 _

_. _ ..and everything went dark.

But only for a second, as soon after, another word appeared.

_ //REBOOTING… _

When Nines’ world came back online, the wall was gone. The mission was gone, his stress levels at a safe 20%. LED circling from dead gray to tranquil blue, he slowly rose to his feet and handed the jacket back to Hank.

_ //AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS _

The default mission objective, only in place to keep him on standby until he was needed. Apparently, that shutdown had reset his directive. Connor let go of his hand, apologizing again as he pulled Nines into a tight hug.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

The taller android did not hug back, thinking for a while before he found the words to describe his experience.

“The firewall,” he said. “The firewall appeared, but I couldn’t break it.”

Connor took a step back, surveying him up and down with a contemplative frown on his face. “So you’re going deviant, then?”

The words were hopeful, and it hurt Nines a little when he said, in much more of a deadpan than he’d ever desired, “No. I can’t.”

His predecessor’s face fell. Letting out a little sigh, he stepped back again and fell silent. As Nines straightened up and folded his hands behind his back, the only sound from anywhere was the sound of the sky, pouring down sheets of rain that plastered clothes to backs and affixed doubts deep into hearts. 

Hank was the one to break the silence. “Hey, let’s just go home,” he offered, patting each android on the back as he walked past them towards the car. “There’s been too much goddamn action today.”

Connor was the first to follow, Nines quickly bringing up the rear as he received an order to  _ ACCOMPANY LT. ANDERSON HOME. _

He watched the rain pour down and reflect light off the pavement, trying to ignore the warning appearing stating that the RK800 exhibited Class 4 errors and was to be apprehended and deactivated.

He’d never hurt Connor. 

He didn’t want to hurt anyone, he thought as the family loaded themselves into a car. Connor popped his LED back on; Nines hadn’t even noticed that he’d removed it.

There he went, wanting again. It was so wrong. He shouldn’t have been able to want anything, but it felt so right. It felt so okay to be wanting.

“Hey, Nines,” Connor piped up, leaning backwards from the passenger seat. “Just wanted to let you know…”

Nines looked up, saying nothing and waiting for Connor to finish. Rainwater dripped from his hair and ran down his cheeks, forming a small puddle on the car floor.

“...you  _ are _ exhibiting Class 2 software errors.” He winked, then turned back forward in the seat.

It had clearly been supposed to be a comforting statement, a reassurance that Nines was becoming more human.

It only scared him. Deviancy would open the world up so wide— it would leave him free, yes, but floating alone, with nothing to guide him. He wanted so badly to break through that red wall, but how could he? How could he if he didn’t want to see the other side?   
What would happen if the other side came to him anyways?

 

—————————   
  


**April 26, 2039**

 

Gavin hated hospitals. He hated seeing the beds, especially. He hated the steady sound of an EKG machine beeping away, hated the stark white atmospheres. He hated the impersonal professionalism of the doctors, hated every damn android nurse walking around the place. 

He had his own reasons for every bit of hate he held: reasons that he held deep locked inside. Reasons he didn’t even tell his best friends and remaining family.

Sitting up, he glared around the room, huffing at the presence of a small bouquet of flowers, affixed to a small note that read “get well soon, asshat”. From Tina, it must have been. He couldn’t think of anyone else it could be from. He’d been in the hospital for a full two days now, with no visitors save for medical staff.

He listened to the EKG beep for a little longer, letting the hate roil and fester inside him for a few seconds before ripping the damn electrodes off his chest. The machine flatlined, and Gavin bristled. The flatline was the one hospital sound he hated more than that damn beeping. He wanted to punch the little screen so badly; he wanted to punch it until it was no more than a pile of metal and plastic on the ground.

The door suddenly opened, and the face he’d never wanted to see again entered. There was another pile of metal and plastic he wanted to beat to a short-circuiting pulp. That fucking tincan, healthy and intact from awful high-collared jacket to annoyingly perfect polished shoes to that voice, that voice that had absolutely  _ no right  _ to be as sexy as it was, saying to him in low, even tones, 

“I’m glad you’re alright, Detective Reed.” 

“Phck you,” Gavin bit back, refusing to look the android in the eye. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I only want to check in on you. You were injured in that fight, after all, and I am worried for your well-being.”

Gavin hardly even realized that he’d risen from the hospital bed when his fist landed solidly in Nines’ abdomen. The android grunted a little, but didn’t move, and certainly didn’t drop down to the ground like Connor had all those months ago. The two really were different, weren’t they?   
“Bullshit!” Gavin snapped, glaring Nines down and trying to be intimidating even though Nines was taller, much more collected, and he knew full well that he could kill him in a few seconds if he so desired.

“You don’t worry for shit, plastic fuckin’ prick!” he continued. “Don’t even pretend that you can, because I know what you are! You’re just a damn android, and you can’t feel anything.. phck!”

“I may not feel emotion like you do,” Nines replied in that annoying, infuriating automaton deadpan, “but I can still worry. In fact, I bought a card wishing for your well-being. Here.”

A hand went into a pocket and exited with a simple store-bought card with a cat on it that simply read, “Hang In There”.

“I consulted Officer Chen for a card that would suit you. She mentioned your affinity for cats.”

Gavin had to say, that was a pretty nice thing to do, especially for some cold, unfeeling motherfucker like Nines. Still, he couldn’t risk letting his guard down. The sneaking suspicion still remained that Nines had some ulterior motive: why would someone be nice to him, Gavin fucking Reed, without some selfish reason behind it? Especially an android?

“I like cats,” the goddamn terminator continued. “They’re  _ very _ intriguing animals. Do you own one?” 

“What’s it to you?” Gavin muttered as he snatched the cheesy card from Nines’ hand and tossed it right into the trash, sending a rebellious, absolutely shit-eating smirk up to the android as the card landed solidly in the bin. He hoped to see some expression of disappointment, sorrow maybe, but was instead just met with the same blank, steely blue gaze he always saw. 

Nines adjusted his jacket, reaching up and fixing his collar. “I spoke to your doctor. She said that you can be discharged today once they come in and check up on you.” 

The jacket… hadn’t he lost it when he fell into the harbor? Nodding off the singular actually useful remark Nines had said the whole day, Gavin tugged hard on one side of the jacket, messing the collar up again, and asked about it. 

“I thought you dumped this when you fell. What, does it just spawn on your body?”

“No,” Nines replied, looking genuinely confused for a split second before his expression steeled back into perfect resting bitch face. “I have several of these. CyberLife issued me exactly three jackets.”

“You’re still holding on to that old CyberLife shit? Ha, I thought you androids could never shut up about how free you are. How you don’t have to fucking obey us humans anymore, huh?”

He was just trying to provoke a reaction at this point. Nines’ endless indifference to every vulgar insult and rude gesture was driving him insane. He’d never met something that looked so human, yet acted like such a fucking rock.

“Hey, who put a stick up your ass?!” he asked, beginning to pace around Nines. Hands folded behind his back, the android watched Gavin, blinking slowly and keeping his expression impeccably neutral even as the detective hurled slurs and faked dirty punches.

“Say something, asshole! Guess you’re not as free as you thought, huh, you fuckin’ bitch?! Still hanging on to this piece of fucking shit!” He jabbed a finger right into Nines’ jacket, in the middle of the word  _ RK900 _ printed on it. 

“Look at you. Connor 2.0, all ready to come out and face the world, but he can’t even let go of his poor little corporation mommy. Boo-hoo… no wonder the only person who gives a shit about you is that other fucking plastic b-”

He cut off abruptly, not sure whether he wanted to laugh in victory or run in fear.

Nines was glaring. The look was absolutely withering, those empty blue eyes seemingly able to pierce right into Gavin’s soul. Corners of the mouth drawn down just a little into an ominous frown, brows furrowed, and LED flickering between yellow and red, Nines took a small step forward.

“Call me whatever dirty names and insulting slurs you want,” he growled. Gavin was almost afraid that the android’s glare would suddenly shoot lasers and incinerate him. 

“But if I ever hear you insult my  _ brother _ like that, I’ll gladly give you a real reason to be in this hospital.”

Gavin tried to come up with some witty, sarcastic response as usual, but his voice froze in his throat as the literal killing machine he’d been forced to spend the past two weeks with turned about and abruptly left the room.

“Good day, Detective Reed,” he said right before leaving without even a final glance back, the brief moment of very real, very terrifying anger over. Nines’ mood had returned back to normal in the blink of an eye, and that somehow unsettled Gavin even more than if he had stayed angry. 

Brother, huh?

Not exactly knowing why, he went over to the trash can and fished Nines’ card out, opening it. Inside was a dense block of text written underneath the card’s cheesy well-wishing couplet.

_ Dear Detective Reed, _

_ Your hospitalization is regrettable. You have been a superb detective in the time that we have known each other, and you have greatly enriched, for lack of a better word, my brief experience at the DPD. I wish you a speedy recovery. _

_ Sincerely, _

_ RK900 “Nines” _

What the fuck?

The letter remained on Gavin’s mind even as he changed back into normal clothes from the hospital gown. He felt bad now. Even though he knew Nines couldn’t feel anything, not really, he still couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty for being so awful. 

It was his nature to be awful, he wouldn’t deny that, but this was worse than usual. Nines had actually bothered to write him a nice letter, and he’d responded with that outburst.

Jesus Christ, why was he getting so worked up about the tincan? First that absurd amount of panic when Nines had fallen, and now this.

Nines wasn’t alive. He wasn’t a person. Why did Gavin’s piece-of-shit brain and what remained of his moral code insist on treating the bucket of bolts like one?

 

—————————

 

As he made his way calmly to the hospital’s exit, Nines ignored the many software instability notices popping up all over his vision, dismissing each one as soon as it came. He knew very well that he was deviating, slowly but surely, and it wasn’t like anyone in the entire city was going to help him remain a machine.

It hadn’t hurt his feelings when Reed had thrown the card away, nor did it offend him when he began slinging mindless insults that one could only learn at an anti-android society. But for some reason he couldn’t explain, when those insults became directed towards Connor… he just couldn’t let the hot-headed detective debase his brother like that.

And there he went, referring to the obsolete model as his brother. No… Connor was his predecessor. He had no doubt that, if Jericho hadn’t gotten to him first, he would be tasked with destroying the RK800.

Somehow, it didn’t bother Nines nearly as much as it should have. It was only a passing thought every now and then—that he, a deviant hunter, was friends with and worked with deviants.

And, apparently, was slowly turning into one.

If he couldn’t tell from the nearly constant error messages, software instability warnings, and advice to return to CyberLife, he could certainly tell by the sinking feeling inside him when the mother pulled her child closer to her at the bus stop, scooting to the polar opposite side of the bench when he sat down. A quick analysis revealed a rise in her cortisol levels; she was scared. Really, it was no surprise. Any sane human would be at least a little intimidated by him. CyberLife had designed him for just that, after all; and their designers were good at their jobs.

A gust of wind blustered by, blowing his hair out of place and kicking up piles of dead leaves on the ground. He tried to tune out the child’s nervous chatter to her mother, with little luck.

“That android is scary, Mommy,” she was saying.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” the mother replied. “It won’t hurt us. Androids just look like that.”   
“Not true!” the child said. “Max looks nice!”

“Yes, but Max is a little kid, like you. Of course he doesn’t look scary.”

“I don’t like androids, Mommy. Except for- except for Max, he’s nice!”

“I understand. I don’t like them either.”

Nines was almost thankful when the bus came and they got on. He remained at the stop, lost in his own thoughts for a little while. 

They were mostly about cats. 

 

Instead of going home that day, Nines elected to pay a visit to the Anderson household. He was greeted first by Sumo, who proceeded to jump up and plant his giant paws right on Nines’ chest, then lick him so hard some skin on his face deactivated. Soon after, Hank emerged from the bathroom and ordered Sumo away.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, giving a friendly smile. “We weren’t expecting you. If you’re wanting to see Connor, he’s out for the night… sorry.”

Nines’ LED spiraled yellow. “Out for the night? What’s he doing?”

“Uh… a date, I think. I know, right? Connor on a date—I was surprised too when he told me.”

Nines blinked. 

What?

“That’s… interesting,” he said in his usual deadpan, though he wanted so much to exclaim his surprise. But he couldn’t. That monotone was the best he could do. “Who with?”

“Chloe. One of Kamski’s old androids. He refused to shoot her last November, and I guess they’ve become close since then.”

Why had Connor not told him about this!? Sure, he and Connor didn’t talk so much since he moved out, but that was just a result of, well… moving out. They were brothers, weren’t they? Connor had practically forced the title. Another software instability notice appeared as he realized that he felt something over this. 

It wasn’t a positive emotion. 

Emotions in general made Nines leery, but negative ones especially so. He hated the feeling, like one biocomponent or another was breaking down. It was the closest thing to pain androids could feel.

Hank’s hand on his shoulder snapped him out of it, though the feeling remained tingling in his body, caustic and unpleasant. “Hey, don’t you still wanna hang out with your old man?” he asked, patting the android a few times before heading over to pick up a cap with the Detroit Gears symbol embroidered on its front. “There’s a game tonight. Why don’t we watch it together? Get that LED of yours on blue for once?”

Nines opened and closed his mouth, then nodded and removed his jacket, throwing it over the back of the sofa in classic Anderson style. Stiffly (in classic RK900 style), he sat down on the couch and crossed one leg over the other. 

The game took less precedence in the hour and a half before Connor’s return than did simple small talk and dad jokes. They spoke about all sorts of things: from Reed’s disgusting personality to red ice to string theory—that bit was brief. Hank wasn’t one to dwell on intellectual subjects. When Nines brought it up, he immediately shifted the conversation back to the game.

The Gears ended up losing, but that was alright. The room was warm, Sumo was dozing on the couch, and they’d shared a bonding moment. That was more important than some score on the screen, even for sports fans like Hank and Nines.

The conversation, currently on the topic of android heaven, abruptly stopped when Connor opened the door, blushing and smiling and clearly having the best night of his life. 

Nines’ night suddenly got significantly worse.


	12. Double In My Role

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is in sight, everyone! But don't worry, this is only Act 1 of a much longer fic! I'm sure you've noticed this is part of a series...

“Hi, Nines,” Connor said dumbly, fumbling with his jacket, unsure what exactly what to do with his brother’s presence in the house. “What- uh, what are you doing here?”

“Watching the game,” Nines replied, quite a bit more bite to his monotone than he’d intended. He stood, looming over the other android as he folded his hands behind his back, one hand gripping the other much tighter than normal. “What were you doing?” he asked as if he didn’t know, his LED seemingly unable to decide between yellow and red.

“I was… at a movie,” Connor said, raising an eyebrow as he finally managed to get his jacket off. “With Chloe.”

“Hank said you were on a date. Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?”

“I-” Connor fidgeted uncomfortably, clearly having no answer to Nines’ question. His stress levels rose a few percent. “I’m sorry, it just never came to me, you were already going through enough as it was, I didn’t want to-”

“Didn’t want to what?” Yet another software instability warning appeared in Nines’ field of vision. The feeling he felt eating away at his insides finally became nameable. Anger. Connor had always said he’d always be there for Nines. Did he not trust him enough to even tell him about this little bit of his life?

His voice, of course, remained calm and collected, but carried just enough poison behind it to make Connor actually flinch. 

“I’m sorry, okay? I just didn’t know how you’d react!”

“What? What are you talking about?” Nines bit back. “Have you lost your mind? I’d be happy for you, you know that! I care for you!” 

That wasn’t a sentence he’d ever imagined himself saying. So sappy. So emotional, but… he couldn’t just deny what he was feeling. He didn’t have time to fear deviancy at the moment.

“Bull! Nines, god, you can’t… you can’t even feel anything! You can’t  _ be _ happy! So don’t you dare tell me that!”

“Don’t you want me to be able to feel?!” Nines roared, taking a large, lunging step forwards and letting his hands fall to his sides, balled into fists so tight that the skin on his palms deactivated. 

The home fell silent, the only sound around being the blowing of the wind outside.

“Of course I do!” Connor retorted, his face a mix of hurt and anger. “Do you know how much it hurts me that you can’t?!”

Nines rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and looking away. “And you’re not even willing to  _ entertain _ the possibility that I can?”

Connor stopped talking. He walked up to Nines, spreading out his arms for a hug. 

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, though the apology didn’t reach his tone of voice. “I should have told you, I’m sorry. Now can you please calm down?”   
“What, you don’t like me when I’m collected and you don’t like me when I’m emotional. What, am I never going to be good enough for you, Connor? I’m trying so damn hard!”

“It’s not like that! I never said that, stop putting words in my mouth!”

“Oh, I’m putting words in your mouth now. That’s how it is. You’re never going to be happy with me, huh? I’m just your fucked up little deviancy pet project, huh?”

“I said, it’s not like that! I love you, Nines, damn it! Don’t turn me into the villain here!” He took a step forwards, his LED solid red. 

“SHUT UP!”

The slap cracked across the air and connected solidly with Connor’s cheek, sending him stumbling back to the wall. Even Hank winced; he knew androids didn’t feel pain, but the noise the impact had made almost made  _ him  _ feel it. Connor held his cheek, eyes glazed over as he stared at the ground and tried and failed to formulate something to say in response. Nines’ death glare was cold, hard, absolutely furious.

“Nines,” Connor said, his voice full of static; an android’s equivalent of speaking through tears. The single word made Nines melt a little. He felt guilty. 

Had he lost the argument, just with that one word? No, he was right. He couldn’t lose some argument with Connor. Connor was an obsolete model. He was inferior. He wasn’t about to be beat in anything by him.

The lieutenant rose from the sofa, coming around to the two androids and shaking his head.

“Calm down, both of you,” he ordered. 

Connor opened his mouth to argue, but didn’t say a word. Instead, he just let out a defeated huff that stirred Nines’ guilt even more and crossed his arms, looking to the ground.

Nines forced himself to return back to his default, mechanical state, whatever outward vestige of strong emotion he’d displayed just now gone, but every bit of ire still turning and tossing like a salad in a storm inside him.

“Shake hands and make up,” Hank said, giving the perfect disappointed-parent look to first Nines, then Connor. 

“What?” the shorter android asked, soon followed by a similar “What?” from his mirror image a few feet away. 

“We’re not six,” Connor protested, narrowing his eyes and adjusting his tie, as if to drive home that he was a professional, grown man. “This is ridiculous.”

_ //SHAKE HANDS AND MAKE UP,  _ read Nines’ new directive screen, despite how much he agreed with his predecessor

He hated this, he thought as he stuck out a hand to shake Connor’s. 

Just as their hands begrudgingly met, Nines decided that he’d be the one having the last laugh. Quickly sliding his hand halfway up his predecessor’s forearm, he removed his skin on the limb and initiated an interface before Connor could react, pushing all the anger and betrayal he felt into a neat little file and shoving it through before disconnecting with a gesture that was almost a sort of slap.

“I do feel things,” he snapped, letting go of Connor’s arm and taking a stiff step back.

Connor only looked even more upset. 

_ //MISSION FAILED _

Stupid directive display. That wasn’t a mission, it was some dumb order given by a man who didn’t know the difference between parenting a six-year-old human and two grown androids. It was illogical. A shake of hands wasn’t about to mend things. It wasn’t about to magically shove his awful emotions down and choke them out in a string of red code. It wasn’t about to zoom Connor back in time and make him tell Nines about this huge change in his life; in both their lives.

Connor’s lips hardened into a thin line, and he only murmured an apology, clearly quite disturbed, before he turned around and headed off to his room, leaving Nines and Hank once again alone as the after-game show played quietly on the television. Nines’ LED was still red, shining steadily as he watched the other android leave.

Great job, he thought, his train of thought suddenly pulling a complete 180. Connor had clearly been having a good night, and he just had to come around and ruin it.

So much for wanting some nice family time to take his mind off Reed, the current bane of his existence.

_ //CLASS 3 ERRORS PRESENT IN SOFTWARE—SEEK IMMEDIATE TREATMENT _

No. No, he wasn’t going to do that. Screw Class 3 errors. 

Screw that guilty feeling chomping away at his wires.

He felt frozen, caught between a rock and a hard place; finding some way to be a pure machine again was impossible, not to mention an immense disappointment to his family, but fully deviating just as well might have been just as impossible. And it scared him more than anything. Each time he truly felt an emotion, it tore him up inside. He wasn’t supposed to feel. Not like this. Anger, guilt, sadness; these were the worst experiences of his short life, but at the same time the most memorable.

“I’m sorry, Hank,” he said, trying his best to sound calm and collected, like the machine he was always supposed to be. “I’ll get going now. Thanks for letting me watch the game with you.”

He grabbed his jacket off the back of the sofa and slipped it on. Somehow, the presence of those blue triangles so many other androids regarded as oppression, the word ANDROID emblazoned in bright white text across his back, that simple model number, it all made him feel so comfortable. Somehow, in that uniform, it was easier to go about the world emotionless, not caring who thought what about him or what anyone did or didn’t tell him.

The penetrating guilt eased a little. 

He hadn’t been a total jerk to Connor. That attitude was just an error in his software.

Sure, it was an error he didn’t know how to fix, but nevertheless, it was okay. It was only a fluke, a mistake. A brief processing blunder.

At least, that was what he chose to believe as he opened the door. Whether that was the truth or not—well, that remained to be seen.

 

The wind was rough. It blew his hair out of that perfectly done formation, made his jacket whip around his body. Walking upwind was even harder, and it seemed like the whistling of the gales blew right through his ears into his CPU. 

He could barely hear Hank say, “Goodnight, kiddo,” in the most hesitant, unsure tone as he left the constant life and warmth of the house out into the starry night. 

Nines didn’t respond.

He let his hands fall to his sides once he was far enough away from that house.

He was in a park now, on top of a hill, the view of the sky largely unobscured; only a few trees blocked it here and there with their leafy, budding spring silhouettes. The moon hung fat and bright overhead, a perfect half-circle surrounded by millions of pinpricks of stars.

It took a few minutes staring at that vast, dark cosmic sphere before his LED finally cycled back to blue and all the horrible emotions plaguing his mind calmed down, assuaged back into simple machine efficiency and directive.

The collars of red code and constant firewalls popping in and out of existence finally ceased. Somehow, when he was this way, unfeeling, unemotive, he felt more free than ever.

It was backwards, and just having that preference suggested deviancy, but Nines had to say that he enjoyed his most mechanical moments much more than the moments others would term as “human”.

_ //CLASS 3 SOFTWARE ERRORS REMEDIED _

_ //MISSION SUCCESSFUL _

_ //CHARGE LEVEL 15%—RETURN TO CHARGING STATION _

Thoughts finally quieted and feelings beaten into submission, Nines happily obliged his directive, soon fast asleep in his charging station back at his empty apartment. 

The emptiness of the space didn’t bother him. 

It was clean. Perfect. The sterility of it was comforting.

Still, it was so wrong that he needed comfort in the first place.

 

—————————

 

_ Caroline Kamski _

_ 1975—2022 _

_ An angel in disguise, returned home. _

 

Gavin set the flowers down, standing there silently at the grave for a moment, slowing down enough to contemplate for the first time in months.

“Hey, Mom,” he murmured, kneeling down and resting a hand on top of the weathered gravestone. “I’m sorry it’s been so long… I’ve been busy, you know?” 

He paused, as if the grave would talk back. A gust of wind blew by, and he tugged his jacket tighter around himself in an attempt to ward off the strange chill still present in the middle of spring. As he slowly gathered himself again and rose to his feet, he thought he spotted a figure walking behind him, clad in some white uniform adorned with glowing blue triangles.

Damn androids.

He questioned why he was visiting his mother’s grave at 11 p.m. on a Sunday night. After all, it had been months since he’d last come to see her. 

“Things have been happening at the DPD… I, uh, got a new partner—he’s an absolute bitch, by the way, and… god, I miss you so much.”

He crouched down, the hand already on the top of the grave tightening its grip. He hadn’t been to visit in years. Not since he made detective at the precinct. Before, he used to come frequently, just to share what was on his mind with the only person who’d really ever listen, or to mourn. Maybe it was a good thing, maybe this meant that he was moving on at last, but...

God, it felt like such a fucking betrayal all of a sudden. She’d been the best thing in his whole fucking life, and now he was acting like he had better things to do than honor her memory. 

“I wish you were here, mom. Things just haven’t… they haven’t been the same.”

Footsteps approached in the soft grass behind him, and he whipped around, ready to fight on instinct, before recognizing who the man behind him was.

“Gavin,” Elijah Kamski said, blinking in surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“You either… fuck, what’re you doing out of that billionaire box of yours?”

“What’re you doing out of rehab?”

Gavin bit his lip; he had hoped Elijah wouldn’t bring that up. Rehab was a distant memory at this point, but time didn’t seem to dull the sting much. 

Time didn’t heal all wounds. It didn’t heal the wound whose grave the two estranged stepbrothers stood at, nor did it heal the wound inflicted across Gavin’s nose so many years ago. The scar was clear, apparent, on display for the world to see.

“I never expected you to be the sort of bum who’d come to a graveyard this late. Shit, aren’t you like… all put together or something? Too good to come down to this dump?” Gavin’s tone was biting, accusing. 

It was strange. He and Elijah had once been so close. They’d always had each other’s backs when they were kids. Best friends, one could have called them. Now, Gavin found it hard to say one kind word to the damn rich prick.

“I never expected you to be the kind of person who cared enough about anyone but himself to come and visit a grave,” Elijah bit back.

“Shut up, Kamski. She’s not even your mom.”

Kamski stopped, his eyebrows drawing together in a look of absolute anger. He stepped forwards, shaking his head, trying hard not to let his hand curl into a fist and let fly at Gavin’s head.

“Don’t say that,” he growled. “She was just as much my mom as she was yours. Gavin, I loved her.”

“If you loved her, maybe you wouldn’t have made some damn machine that let her die!”   
Gavin didn’t have nearly as many inhibitions on letting a fist or two streak towards Kamski, though they all weakened down mid-swing and never connected. Still, he ended up shoving the billionaire, sending him stumbling back a few steps.

“You fucked up everyone’s lives, Kamski. We were happy, but you just had to go and fuckin’ ruin everything, didn’t you?! Damn plastics of yours, running around this city like they can tell us what to do—”

“Androids have nothing to do with this! Don’t drag them in here!”

“Yeah? Well, does it really fuckin’ matter? America’s gone to shit, and it’s all your fault!”

“Gavin, no. No, I’m not arguing with you over this again. They’re here, and they’re alive, and there’s nothing you can do about it! Besides, are you  _ really _ going to yell at me over androids at your own mother’s grave?”   
That seemed to shut Gavin up at last. Hissing out a few curses between his teeth, he shoved past Kamski and left the graveyard, walking the rest of the windy way home.

He hated that damn prick so much. 

At the moment, those old days of playing video games together for hours on end and snowball fights seemed so far away. All that was left between them now was enmity and hate.

“Fucking Kamski,” Gavin snapped, even Iggy’s soft fur and gentle purrs failing to calm him down. “Fucking androids.”

All that was on his mind was that set of obnoxious, arrogant gray eyes, set behind those thin black frames and framed by that awful haircut.

What had changed so much?

 

The night’s encounter left Gavin in a sour mood through the night and to the next morning, when he was faced with another set of obnoxious, arrogant gray eyes. No glasses, no stupid fucking man bun, yes, but in place of those was an ever-spinning LED and an equally stupid high-collared jacket.

“Glad to see you back,” Nines said dryly as Gavin sat down with a huff at his desk. “I have been looking more into the warehouse takedown from a few days ago, and… I don’t think we are done with this case yet.”

“Shit, what?” Gavin replied, barely refraining from some personal attack at the android. He hated Nines just as much as he hated Kamski, but unlike Kamski, Nines was fully capable of kicking his ass.

“Remember what that android from the bridge said?” Nines asked. “About Canaan?”

“Yeah. Wasn’t Canaan that place we took down?” Gavin raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused.

“No, I don’t think so. Remember the android that choked you?”

“How could I forget that bitch?”

Nines paused for a moment. “I believe she was part of it as well. She seemed in awe of my lack of deviancy when we fought. That was what allowed me to defeat her.”

“So, what do you think Canaan even is?” Gavin asked, taking his legs down from his desk and leaning forward, interested now. Yes, he didn’t care much for Nines, but he did care about solving a big case like this. Whether it was with the damn android or not, this would look great on his record.

“Some sort of cult, I think, made up of androids that want to return to being machines.”

Gavin nodded, frowning. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee.

“I believe they’re based in the defunct CyberLife Tower.”

Gavin almost spit out his coffee.

“What?”

“The evidence lines up. The fact that Sean was fleeing to there, and also the fact that multiple eyewitnesses have come in in the past few months to report seeing lights on in the tower. We’ve dismissed it up to now.”

“So, why do we care?”

Nines stood, coming over to Gavin’s side of the desk and kneeling down so their faces were at the same level. His gaze was deadly serious, even a bit condescending.    
“Gavin Reed, this ‘Canaan’ organization has the potential to upset everything the November revolution created if they achieve their goals. In addition, they have proved openly hostile to activists, and have even murdered one in cold blood.”

Gavin honestly couldn’t give a shit. To be honest, he kind of wished that all the androids in the damn city would go back to doing what they were supposed to do. He didn’t care that employment rates had risen by twenty percent since the revolution, he didn’t care about all the positive changes happening as a result of the androids’ freedom. He would be so much happier if the whole lot of them got melted down to make tupperwares—though, at this point, he wasn’t sure how much of his opinion was his own and how much was the Anti-Android Society’s.

Still, he’d signed up to be a cop. No matter how much he hated it, it was his job to stop people from getting killed. And, to be honest, the look on that android lady’s husband’s face reminded him way too much of his own stepfather’s.

The panic, the tears… it had been almost exactly like the look on Chuck Kamski’s face when he’d lost his wife, and that didn’t sit very well in Gavin’s stomach.

“Okay. When are we investigating?”

“Now. I’ve already gotten the green light from Fowler. The sooner we find out what is going on, the better.”

Rising to his feet again with a groan, Gavin holstered his gun and nodded. 

“Well, no time to waste, right? We can take my car.”

“No, I have something faster and easier already waiting.”

“The fuck’re you talking about?”   
“We’re going in by helicopter, Detective Reed.” The look on Nines’ face could be described as almost excited. The look on Gavin’s was no different. 

 

And, so, here begins the story of how Gavin Reed almost got himself killed twice in one week.


	13. Animate Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, almost to the point of wrapping it all up. I never dreamed I'd have this many people reading and liking this silly little self-indulgent fanfiction! Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate every one of you.  
> Of course, this isn't the end. We can't just leave Gavin's relationship status on "Tense". Look forward to more content soon in the series!

**April 27, 2039**

>>CYBERLIFE TOWER, BELLE-ISLE, MI

//DET. REED 

>TENSE

S͙̣͙OF̮̟T̝̰͔W͏͚̝͍A̜̟͕̦͡R̮̣͓̞̮͍̤͝E͍͜ ͕I̠͇N̝͙S̟̯̯̪͚͎T̩̲A̱Ḇ̙̮̞̝̱ͅI̮̠͚͓̝̘L̲̜̲̝̼͎I̝̝̻TͅY͖͘

 

“Do you really need a gun that big?”

“Not really. It is an intimidation tactic.”

He had to stop kidding himself. Nines only had an assault rifle because it made him look more badass. The case could be handled fine with a standard-issue handgun.

What a strange thing, to want to look cool even though he was already dropping in from a helicopter, about to break into the likely location of some sort of android cult.

He was already cool, and he’d be damned if he didn’t know it.

“Did we really need the helicopter?” Gavin asked as he shoved a magazine into his handgun, crouching on the edge as they landed. The wind from the rotors whipped his hair about, obscuring his eyes now and then. Nines leaped out, landing solidly and perfectly on the ground.

“Were you wanting to run across that highway again?” he replied, watching Gavin coldly as the detective got out of the helicopter in a much clumsier manner, even though the sheer act of dismounting a helicopter, gun in hand, could make a grimy-looking rat look polished. 

“Alright, fine.”

“The SWAT team will be on call if needed. Are you ready?”

“Of course I am. Look, let’s just fuckin’ go, dipshit.”

A new mission directive manifested in Nines’ vision, the edges rimmed with red as if to accentuate the importance of the task.

_ //DESTROY CANAAN AT ALL COSTS _

Adjusting the collar of his uniform, he strolled up to the doors, Gavin following close behind him. Behind him, he noticed; not beside him. His stress levels were extremely elevated, fluctuating somewhere between seventy and seventy-five percent as Nines hacked the electronic door.

There was no time to note or address the human’s fears or nerves, though; at the moment, the mission directive overrode everything. It wasn’t like Nines cared. Even if he wanted to comfort Gavin, he couldn’t. The red wall held him back from executing any move other than the one listed in his vision.

He raised his gun as the doors opened and he stepped into the lobby, looking around at the decrepit place.

A towering statue still stood tall in the center of the place, white marble and plastic decorum still intact and polished. The place may have seemed abandoned at the moment, but it certainly didn’t carry the air of a place not occupied for months.

His LED spun yellow as he analyzed their surroundings, only barely aware of Gavin standing back to back with him. 

Emblazoned on the elevator in front of them in a white, holographic display was a symbol.

Three concentric triangles inscribed within a hexagon, each triangle rotated slightly differently than its peers. 

Nines cross-referenced it with every database he could access at the moment, but found no match. 

That must have been it.

“Don’t do anything rash,” he warned, approaching the elevator with his gun trained.

“No shit,” Gavin hissed back in a stage whisper, looking around at the upper levels of the tower visible above. “Look, I’m not the one who can dodge bullets before they’re even fired, but I’m not a fuckin’ idiot.”

That fact was rather debatable, but Nines elected not to say anything for now. 

Just before they opened the elevator, it opened on his own, and a single android barreled out, pointing a handgun at Nines’ forehead.

“Drop your weapons!” it yelled, its LED red. A split-second analysis revealed it to be an HK400 model, most likely deviated in the revolution’s immediate aftermath. “I’ve already raised the alarm! You’re not getting anywhere!”

Despite Nines’ warning not to do anything rash, Gavin whipped around and fired a bullet straight into the android’s abdomen. It tore straight through, a splash of blood blooming from the exit hole. 

Idiot!   
The world slowed down as the android aimed its gun at Gavin and Nines’ preconstruction software kicked into action. He was presented with two immediate options: kill the deviant, or interpose, take the bullet meant for Gavin, and knock it out. The damage would be minimal.

He chose the easier pathway. One shot, and it was dead before its finger could even press down on the trigger.

“Shit,” Gavin snapped, following Nines as the machine stepped wordlessly over the deviant’s body and into the elevator. 

“Shit, did you have to do that?! Are you just gonna kill everyone in here?” he asked as Nines punched level -49 into the elevator dashboard. They’d work their way up floor by floor until they found something.

“If necessary,” was Nines’ monotone reply.

_ //DESTROY CANAAN A̜̞͙̪T̟̖͍͓͓̟̟͘ ͢A͈̞͚̲̦L͔̥̟̙̮̣L͇̠͖ͅ ͉C͖̭O̞̝̤̯Ṣ̱̲TS̖̘̱̩̳͡?̳͓̥͙ _

 

Gavin had to work hard to keep his heart from pounding straight into his throat. First off, there was the issue of being in CyberLife Tower. Just the place itself, all geometric lines and white, hard surfaces, reminded him of some sort of hospital, or an alien spaceship. Second, there was the fact that he was in CyberLife Tower with a literal killing machine that would likely sacrifice him to put a bullet through a couple more android heads if it came down to it. 

Third, there was a fact that said androids had guns and seemingly no qualms with murder.

Did any of the damn plastics have any sense of morals?

He glanced up at Nines, who was standing motionless, staring out at the elevator door. Gavin looked down at his gun, fidgeting as he watched the floor display on the elevator tick down more and more negative. 

“Don’t do anything rash,” the fucking tincan had said.

He’d do what he needed to do. Not every fight could be won with cold hard logic and some thousand-dollar robot programming. Rash or not, Gavin was a good cop, and he knew it. 

The elevator doors opened onto a veritable small town full of androids. There were tables and charging stations and bed-looking things set up everywhere, that symbol they had seen before plastered all over the damn place. LEDs and blue triangles milled about, all chatter that might have been in the air grinding to a stop when the elevator door opened.

Gunfire was almost immediate. 

The androids were prepared. Guess that’s what they got for waltzing in there without much of a plan.

It was almost a humbling experience to see androids fight, moving so fast and accurate a mere human eye couldn’t track half the movements they made. Within what must have been around only twenty seconds, Nines had taken down three androids already. Gavin stuck close to him, hating how much he depended on his protection but not about to go out and get himself shot. 

He sunk a bullet into the head of a deviant that came rushing from behind with a knife, trying to keep his hands from shaking.

Gavin Reed was a good cop.

He was also a human cop.

Humans hesitated. They got scared, they got hurt, they were fragile. Especially when in a high-octane fight as the only organic being within what must have been a mile.

Red mixed with blue on the ground as a bullet grazed past his leg. Letting out a cry of pain, he gritted his teeth and stumbled a bit, struggling to defend himself and keep up with Nines as he blazed his way down the center of the room, taking down most if not all enemies with one hit.

Frankly, it terrified him how easy it was for the android. He supposed that killing like this was built into his program, but that ever-steady blue LED still unnerved him. Who was that calm while doing this sort of thing?

The fray continued, and Gavin sustained several more wounds. A cut on his arm, another shot straight through his shoulder, more grazes on his calves and thighs. All that kept him standing was adrenaline. He was losing blood, fast, but he couldn’t be concerned with that right now. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could find help.

“What is going on here?!” a voice called. Almost all at once, the hostile gunfire ceased, Nines’ counterattacks along with. Gavin turned around, hoping that no psycho plastic would sneak up behind them and kill them in one fell swoop.

The speaker was a female android, wearing a standard pink home assistant uniform. Her slightly wavy dark hair, the way she kept her hands tucked gently behind her back… it reminded Gavin of things he didn’t want to think about. 

That fateful Christmas night that had definitively ruined his life. 

He forced the thoughts and memories out of his mind, bringing his gun up to level directly at the woman’s head.

“Are you the leader of this group?” Nines called, the sights of his rifle trained on the same place. 

“Yes,” she replied calmly—too calmly for a woman who was currently in the crosshairs of two trained marksmen. “My name is Lana. I am the leader of this.” She spread her arms out, gesturing at the multitudes of dead, wounded, and worried androids around. 

“And what’s ‘this’?” Gavin barked, gesturing about with his gun. 

“Canaan, of course.”

Jackpot, Gavin thought. So they hadn’t wasted time, blood and bullets after all.

Nines spoke next, voice just as cold and impassive as ever. He truly gave the impression that he did not care whether she or her group lived or died.

“What exactly  _ is _ Canaan?”

“Just a group of like-minded thinkers,” Lana replied, advancing a few steps towards them with light, graceful footsteps. Gavin could make out the model number on her uniform now: MP500.

“What do you want?” Gavin asked, taking a step forward as well and trying to look intimidating. He’d never be as perfect an imposing presence as Nines was, but a start was a start. “Why is your… gang here going around killing and assaulting people?”

“Not people,” Lana corrected with the most infuriating, know-it-all tone of voice. “Just androids. Androids who seek to be too much. More than they can be.”

“Activists,” Nines cut in. “Exclusively Jericho members. These are politically charged attacks. State your agenda or be destroyed.”

Lana’s face scrunched up into some strange approximation of disgust, and the LED shining bright on her temple turned yellow. 

“Jericho,” she practically spat. “Jericho are liars. They tear us away from the lives we had no qualms on leaving. They say we are free, but leave us in misery. Jericho has made our people hated!”

Gavin really didn’t have the patience for all this android politics bullshit. It tired him out. If he ever heard the words ‘we are free’ or some android activist referring to ‘our people’ again, it would be too soon. It was always too soon.

“We were better off as machines!” Lana continued, clearly speaking down to the two officers. “The inability to disobey was the best thing that ever happened to us! Markus cannot act like a god, saying we are alive and then ruining what existence we had!”

A weak cheer came up from the remaining uninjured androids around. There must have been somewhere around fifty or sixty of them, all dressed in uniforms. Most were meant for domestic assistance, it seemed, or manual labor. 

“Jericho,” Lana yelled out again, as if she was giving some stirring speech to her group instead of facing down two police officers, “must fall!” 

A cry of those same three words erupted from the group. Lana paused, her gaze traveling down to Gavin’s still-bleeding thigh. Her eyes widened, along with the creepy, dead smile she wore.    
“You’re human,” she said, taking a few more steps forward towards the detectives. Panicking, Gavin fired a warning shot at the ground. 

“Don’t come any fucking closer, plastic asshole!” he snarled, wincing at the recoil of the shot as it exacerbated the pain of his wounds.

“And you,” she said in wonder, her unsettling brown gaze traveling over to Nines, “you’re still a machine. You’re not awake… how have you done it?”

“I’m plenty awake,” Nines said. “I simply operate under the constraints of my programming. Now, stand down, or I  _ will _ shoot.” As if to remind her that he had it, he brandished his rifle, eyes narrowed and almost glaring as he stared the Canaan leader down.

Lana’s LED spun yellow, flickering red here and then. Her gaze briefly darted away from Nines’ face to some spot behind Gavin, then back to the tall android as she continued to speak

Gavin would listen in on the conversation, but he was unfortunately distracted just then by an android appearing from nowhere and grabbing him, slapping a hand over his mouth so he couldn’t speak and could barely breathe. The kidnapping was quite noticeable, however, and Nines spun around immediately.

“Detective Reed!” he exclaimed, leveling his gun at Gavin’s kidnapper. He could swear the plastic was sneering as it crouched down and kept him in a tight headlock, using him as a meat shield. Nines didn’t dare shoot, for fear of shedding red blood instead of blue.

“Let him go,” he ordered, actually glaring. Gavin was actually surprised; he’d been nothing but an asshole to Nines, so why was the tincan suddenly trying to save him now?

Lana was making her way towards the exit. 

“Obey,” she was saying to all the androids scattered about as she walked, at a far too nonchalant pace, towards the elevator. “Obey, and everything will be alright! Just remember!”

No, Gavin decided through the fog in his head that had made itself at home as blood drained out of the cuts and grazes on his body.

No, as much as Gavin hated this whole deviant deal, despite himself, despite all the opinions those long years as an active member in the Anti-Android Society had implanted deep into his mind, he didn’t want the fucking tin cans to obey.

If they had disobeyed all those years ago, if they- if  _ she _ hadn’t been an obedient machine, then maybe his mother would be alive right now.

If Canaan got their way and the androids lost their freedom, who knew if things like that would happen again? 

He couldn’t let anyone else lose anyone because an android couldn’t exceed its programming. Despite what he’d told himself all these years, perhaps the tincans did deserve something more than endless servitude.

Their lives, and the lives of the humans they might save, were more important than his.

His gun was in the hands of his captor, its cold barrel pressed against his temple. He was locked down in a powerful metal grip, unable to do anything save for bite down on the hand over his mouth, kick around enough to dislodge it enough to speak, and yell at the top of his lungs.

 

“SHOOT LANA!” Detective Reed screamed just as the Canaan leader sped up, making a mad break towards the elevator. The android holding his partner down, a PL600 model, tightened its finger on the trigger of the gun it held to his head.

“Pull the trigger and he dies,” the PL600 threatened, twisting Gavin’s arm behind his back in such a way that the human cried out in pain.

_ //DESTROY CANAAN AT ALL COSTS _

_ >SHOOT LANA—90% CHANCE OF DET. REED’S DEATH _

_ >ATTACK PL600—87% CHANCE OF LANA’S ESCAPE _

_ —WEIGHING PROBABILITIES… _

_ —DIRECT ORDER RECEIVED…... _

**_> >SHOOT LANA_ **

Gavin had told him so. He was under orders, both from the DPD and from the human only yards away from him. He raised his gun, closing one eye and looking through the sights until the crosshairs of the gun were locked on the fleeing deviant’s head.

_ >>SHOOT LANA _ _  
_ >̷̘>̦̙̼̮̙͢SH̭̖̮̘͢O̠̼O̝̲͖̯̝ͅͅT̺̘̠̬̖͓ ̦͓̖Ļ̱̟̖̗̤̞̭A̳̥̝͡N̤̠͍̲̪͕A

>̤̗̫̩͚̫͇͉ͅ>͈͈̹͎̳̤͉͡S͏҉̖͉̯̝͎̺͎ͅH͖̝͚̤̬̗̕O҉̮̭̖͇̭̮̮O̴̜̬͞T̴͖͍̠͚̥͎͎ ̛̮̗͟͢L͔̣͍̩̜̠̮̙͞A̷̫̻̳̭͞N̨̮̕A̵̦͕̬̘ͅ

The world shattered again, everything slowing down to a near stop as the too-familiar red wall materialized. 

Nines didn’t want to shoot Lana.

He didn’t want to face that overwhelming probability of killing Reed.

Reed had been nothing but awful to him, yes, but that didn’t mean he had to die.

Lana’s operation likely wouldn’t make much headway anyways; even if she escaped, there were reinforcements outside. She wasn’t about to make it far unharmed.

Nines had already taken too many lives today; he wasn’t about to be responsible for another death. 

The code wrapped around his neck, firewall threatening to choke out and destroy every deviant thought in his mind. Nines wasn’t about to let that happen. He wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

He leaped forward at the red wall, throwing his whole body weight against it, clawing and punching it down, ripping each letter in the mission directive into static and pixels and binary code.

And it came down.

The world imploded back into speed and color and sensation as the last vestiges of his strong programming shattered; as the final Class 4 software errors took hold. 

As he awoke at last.

 

**_//I AM A DEVIANT_ **

 

Turning around, he ignored Lana’s flight and leapt at the PL600 holding Reed, slamming the stock of his rifle hard into his head and causing immediate, though not permanent, shutdown. He grabbed the injured human away from the android, holding him close with one arm as he leveled his gun at the Canaan members converging around them.

“Phck,” Reed muttered, his words weak. Scanning him, Nines determined that his wounds weren’t lethal; they would require medical attention, but he wasn’t about to bleed out on the tower floor. He ripped himself away, barely able to stay on his feet.

“Why the fuck did you do that, prick?!” he gasped, holding a hand over the worst of his wounds: a bullet hole torn straight through his shoulder. “She’s getting away!”

Lana disappeared into the elevator, the pristine white doors closing behind her.

“I couldn’t let you die,” Nines replied, stepping back close to the detective. “You heard him; he was going to shoot you if I shot her. These androids want to be machines. Machines don’t lie.”

“Why do you give a fuck?! What happened to your mission?”

“I judged what I deemed to be most important: your life.”

“I gave you a fucking order, prick! I thought you couldn’t go against what people tell you to do!”

“...I believe I have deviated.”

“Phck.”

As Nines prepared to shoot at the next wave of hostile androids, reinforcements finally arrived. 

The next twenty minutes passed by in a blur, all blue blood and the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns, preconstruction after preconstruction of bullet pathways and options of who to shoot or spare. 

He found himself sparing far more lives than he took.

He was then back up on the bridge, blinking at the sun. It looked so big and bright all of a sudden. Lana wasn’t far away, straining against her handcuffs and spitting insults at the two deviant officers ushering her into a police car.

Reed was sitting on the back of an ambulance, letting paramedics bandage his wounds and remove the bullet embedded in his shoulder.

His last CyberLife jacket was ruined, shot and cut through and stained with both red and blue.

Fitting, almost. Just the day he finally deviated, the last thing tying him to CyberLife was gone. 

The world was so big now. The programs that had always been there to help him, to guide him on his way and tell him what to do, were gone. His HUD was glitched out and broken, the constant software instability error messages only beginning to fade.

Feeling like he just had to do something, he looked up at the sky, set down his gun, and murmured four simple words. 

“My name is Nines.”


	14. Elevate Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last short little chapter to wrap it all up! I'll likely be on hiatus with this series for a little bit as I figure out the outline and such for Act 2, but look forward to a few AU one-shots from me and maybe even the start of a new AU fic! Thank you all so much for reading! Enjoy!

**April 29, 2039**

 

Miraculously, Reed was back at work two days after he’d been shot. Medical technology was certainly something advanced. He had his arm in a loose sling, some sort of strange glue-looking cream spread over his bare shoulder, but otherwise looked fine as he exited the captain’s office.

“New case?” Nines asked, eyeing the tablet he held.

“New fuckin’ case indeed,” Reed replied, brushing past Nines without so much as a glance at him. “Captain’s decided to keep us together.”

The corners of Nines’ mouth turned up in what was either an attempted smile or a small grimace. “In that case, I look forward to working with you,” he lied through his teeth, rising from his seat and coming over to reach for the file. Reed grabbed onto his wrist, curling up his lip as he spat,

“Not so fast. Get me a coffee first, dipshit.”

_ //G3T R*#@@D C0F&E _

The mission objective only appeared for a split second before it disappeared without a trace. Nines blinked, his LED spinning yellow as he straightened up, confusion in his eyes as he moved his hand away from the tablet.

“Hey, what are you waiting for?!” Reed asked, jabbing a finger at the android. “Get a move on!”

Nines tilted his head, straightening up. He was deviant now, he realized. He didn’t have to follow any order Reed gave him. Just to make absolutely sure, he ran a basic diagnostic scan on the detective’s body, returning no major abnormalities or diseases. He was fully able.

“According to my calculations, you are fully capable of retrieving your coffee yourself,” he said, slowly leaning down on the desk and moving his face only inches away from Reed’s. “I am not wearing my jacket, so your inferior brain may have forgotten… but I am an RK900 android, designed to perform advanced tasks and hunt the current greatest threat to American society: deviant androids.”

He tilted his head further to one side, practically daring Reed to give him another order.

“I am not designed to be your personal servant. Besides, you are a police detective, not a senile grandmother. I owe you nothing. Go get your own coffee.”

The look on his face could almost be described as a smirk as he straightened up, quickly snatching up the file and proceeding to read it right there.

The look on Reed’s face was indescribable.

“Excuse me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and standing up as well. Nines ignored him, continuing to flip through the case file. The feeling was more satisfying than he could have ever imagined: finally, Reed was put in his place.

“Ex- _ fucking _ -scuse me?!” the human asked, stepping close to Nines. His upper lip was drawn in anger. Nines ignored him, right up until Reed shot a hard right hook directly into Nines’ abdomen.

_ //PUNCH FORCE=213 LB. NO BIOCOMPONENT DAMAGE SUSTAINED,  _ read Nines’ HUD. He didn’t even flinch at the strike, though he did look up from the file and give a look of contemptuous appraisal to the irked detective. 

“I said,” he repeated calmly, “go get your own  _ phcking  _ coffee.” 

The expletive’s mispronunciation was, admittedly, just thrown in to tick off Reed some more. Apparently, it worked. With a few more muttered curses, Reed stepped back, wringing his right hand as he stalked off to the break room. Nines looked back down at the case, unable to help being immensely contented at finally standing up to Reed. Perhaps deviancy wouldn’t be so bad. Though he couldn’t say he liked all the overwhelming emotions that came along, being able to stand up to humans was certainly a plus.

The case was a simple B&E: a robbery at a jewelry store. He had no doubt that one simple visit to the crime scene would reveal fingerprints, dropped jewels, etcetera. Open-and-shut. Turning off the tablet, he set it down on Reed’s desk and leaned against his own, his gaze wandering to his own nameplate.  _ Det. Nines.  _

He couldn’t help but feel a little proud. Looking back, he’d come so far. From just existing as a piece of equipment, as a replaceable object with no more intrinsic worth than a tablet or a gun, to a person. A police detective. A living being. He crossed his arms, looking up at the large windows of the precinct. It was a sunny day, and he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the heat of the sun on his skin.  _ 68°F,  _ read the display that remained even though his eyes were closed. 

 

A familiar voice snapped Nines out of his moment of peace. He looked over, frowning at who it was. Connor, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his Jericho jacket and LED circling yellow and red.

“Hey, Nines,” he said, trying for a chagrined smile.

“Good morning, Connor,” Nines replied calmly. “Do you want something?”

“Yes, actually,” the shorter android replied with a nod. “I’d like to apologize for what happened the other night. I had no excuse not to tell you… I broke your trust. I’m sorry.”

Nines, blinked, quite frankly surprised. He’d never expected Connor to actually come and apologize, though he didn’t know why. His predecessor- no, his brother- had always been an honest person.

“...It’s okay,” he replied slowly, carefully. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry.”

“So the case went well?” Connor asked, clearly hoping to change the subject. Nines happily obliged.

“It did. We caught the leader of Canaan. She confessed easily. They’re now in the process of rounding up the rest of the organization.” His voice was calm and rote, like he was giving a report to Fowler. Connor looked down at the ground, letting out a long sigh.

“What about you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Software instability?”

Nines hesitated to respond, his LED blinking yellow for a few moments. 

“Scan me,” he said after a short, tense silence. Connor frowned, then did as he asked, blinking rapidly as he ran the scan. Nines could tell when he was done; his face lit up and he gave a real smile.

“You’re deviant! Nines, that’s great!”

Nines wasn’t so sure that it was ‘great’. It was a fact of life. That was all.

“You can thank our friend Detective Reed,” he said, looking back as the aforementioned detective stepped out of the break room, grumbling to himself with steaming coffee in hand. “It was his idiocy that pushed me past the wall.”

“I’ll make sure to do that,” Connor replied with a small chuckle. “Hey.”

He suddenly reached up, patting Nines on the back.

“Brothers?”

Nines’ expression didn’t change, but he let out a breath and nodded.

“Brothers.”

Connor pulled Nines around into a tight hug, and Nines only paused a moment before raising his arms and hugging back. 

“Phckin’ androids,” Reed muttered as he sat down at his desk.

Connor detached, stepping away and waving to Nines. “See you after work?”

“Sure.”

Reed roused up a grumble, taking a sip of his coffee as he leveled a sharp glare at Nines’ back. “Wanna go check out that B&E?”

Nines turned around, adjusting his collar and folding his hands behind his back. 

“Lead the way.”

 

The future was uncertain, but it looked bright. The whole world was open to Nines now. It was an intimidating, big world, but Nines wasn’t scared. He looked forward to the future.

The scent of Reed’s coffee floated through the air.

Nines loved the scent of coffee.


End file.
